-
Wuthering
Heights
Characters
and the
relationships between them
恩萧（欧肖）先生
aw
————
呼啸山庄主人
辛德雷
·
恩萧
Hindley Earnshaw
——
其
子
凯瑟琳
·
恩萧
Catherine Earn
shaw
—
其女，小名凯蒂
Cathy
希斯克厉夫
Heathcliff
———
恩萧抚养的孤儿
弗兰西斯
Frances
————
辛德雷之妻
哈里顿
·
恩萧
Hareton
Earnshaw
——
辛德雷之子
丁耐莉
Nelly Dean
—————
女管家，又名艾伦
Ellen
保姆
Nanny
约瑟夫
Joseph
—————
呼啸山庄的老仆人
林敦先生
Mr
。
Linton
————
画眉田庄主人
埃德加
·
林敦敦
Edgar
Linton
——
其子，后娶凯瑟
琳
·
恩萧
伊莎贝拉
·
林敦
—
Isabella
Linton
其女，后嫁希刺克厉夫
凯瑟琳
·
林敦
——
Catherine Linton
埃德加与凯瑟琳之女
，亦名凯蒂林
·
希刺克厉夫
洛克乌德先生
Mr Lockwood
——
房
客
肯尼兹医生
Dr. Kenneth
———
当地医生
齐
拉
Zillah
—————
呼啸山庄的女仆
画眉山庄
Hwamei Villa
In Gothic
novels,
the shaping of the characters
is a commonly used vehicle for giving
expression to the gothic ingredient.
This is particularly true of Emily‘s
Wutherin
g Heights.
When we
open this book, we can see various terrifying
characters. The first character is
the
hero Heathclif
f. He seems to be an
inhuman monster. Being a son of the storm, his
behavior is flooded with Gothic color:
cruel, imperious, and he stoops to anything to get
what he wants. What‘s more, the love
between Catherine and him goes beyond the
common limit and is quite abnormal
compared with love in other works of her age. The
entire action of the story takes place
within the two houses-Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Grange and on the moors lie
between. The principal character, Heathcliff,
around whom all the action revolves,
emerges as starkly as Wuthering Heights. He may
be thought of as the personification of
the house. There is an analogy between his
appearance and his character and that
of the Heights itself.
When
Mr. Lockwood, the tenant of Thrushcross Grange,
pays his visit to Wuthering
Heights,
curious about the brooding quality and crumbing,
menacing appearance of the
Heights and
the inscription over the door-
the date
?1500‘and the name ?Hareton
Earnshaw‘,
Mr. Lockwood would like to ask his landlord about
this, but Heathcliff proves to
be
unsociable, inhospitable, and brusque.
―The ?walk in‘ was uttered with closed
teeth, and expressed the sentiment, ?Go to the
deuce‘: even the gate over which he
leant manifested no sympathizing movement to the
words; and I think that circumstance
determined me to accept the invitation: I felt
interested in a man who seemed more
exaggeratedly reserved th
an
myself.‖[18]
This is the
first appearance that Emily displayed to us. And
the first impression of t
he hero
Heathcliff adds the color of mystery
and implies to the readers that the man is bound
to
have a long story. By the brief
portrayal of the hero, she creates suspense for
the whole
story, which embodies the
Gothic tradition.
During Mr. Lockwood‘s
staying at the Heights, he found a diary. The
entry regarding the
degrading life
Heathcliff was forced to lead by Hindley throws
some light on the character
of
Heathcliff as Mr. Lockwood now finds him. For the
first time we sympathize with
Heathcliff in his anguish, although we
are still ignorant as to its cause. Heathcliff has
been
revealed as a man capable of great
emotion, as well as cruelty. The scene still is in
the
Heights. Declaring that the room is
haunted, Mr. Lockwood decides to spend the rest of
the night elsewhere. As he is about to
leave the room, the odd and horrible thing
happens:
―I obeyed, so far as to quit
the chamber; when ignorant where the
narrow lobbies led, I
stood
still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece
of superstition on the part of my
landlord which belied, oddly, his
apparent sense. He got on to the bed and wrenched
open the lattice, bursting, as he
pulled at it, into an unco
ntrollable
passion of tears. ?Come
in! Come in!‘
he sobbed. ?Cathy, do come. Oh,
do
-
once more! Oh! My heart‘s
darling! Hear
me this time, Catherine,
at last!‘ The specter showed a specter‘s ordinary
caprice: it gave
no sign of being; but
the snow and wind whirled wilding through, even
reaching my station,
and blowing out
the light.‖[19] Heathcliff is alarmed when he
hears that Catherine has
appeared to
Mr. Lockwood; obviously, he believes that her
spirit haunts Wuthering
Heights and is
trying to come to him from beyond the grave. This
element arouses the
interest and
curiosity of the reader and embodies Gothic color
a step forward.
3.1.1.2 Crazy revenge
on his enemies
With the birth of his
son Hareton and the death of his wife Frances
Hindley‘s final
disintegration
commerces. This is consistent with the moral
weakness he has shown
previously. He
concentrates his venom on Heathcliff, whom he
brutalizes and in whom he
tries to
stamp out the feeling of worthiness that old Mr.
Earnshaw had engendered.
Heathcliff, in
turn, delights in seeing his enemy destroy
himself. It is consistent with
Heathcliff‘s nature that he encourages
his enemies to destroy themselves by their won
inner flaws. And readers anticipate
conflicts and trouble in the future. From this
point of
view, he behaves quite cruel
and revengeful. To fulfill his revenge on Hindley,
he turns
little Hareton into a brute
with no love or respect for his father, and he has
ended his
education
–
just as Hindley did to
him. When Heathcliff reappears after
Cather
ine‘s
marriage,
thinking she might show him where his evil ways
are leading him, Nelly pays a
visit to
the Heights. Seeing little Hareton outside the
gates, she identifies herself and says
she has called to see his father,
Hindley. Hareton does not recognize her as his
former
nurse and greets her with a hail
of stones and curses. Nelly asks him who taught
him such
things and he answers ―Devil
daddy.‖[20] He says his father cannot abide him
because he
swears at him. He says the
curate no longer comes to teach him and it is
Heathcliff, whom
he loves, who has
taught him to swear. Furthermore, he is determined
to brutalize
Hareton as himself was
brutalized. This is evidented by the incident of
Hareton‘s hanging
the puppies. So far,
Heathcliff has succeeded in re
venging
Hindley‘s insult on the next
generation. His cruelty is easy to
feel.
What’s more, his
attitude towards Isabella is not only very cruel
but
also very
imperious
. Edgar is his
enemy, too. Once he declares he will
“crush
his
ribs
in
like
a
rotten
-hazel-
nut”.[21]
Because
of
his
hatred
for
Edgar,
he
takes
advantage
of
Edgar’s
sister,
Isabella.
When
he
finds
Isabella has fallen in
love with him, he encourages her to run off with
him
even
though
he
does
not
love
her
at
all.
He
does
so
only
for
the
Linton
property and the revenge on Edgar. But
after her marriage to him, she
receives
no love or pity from him, but indifference and
distain. The
desperately unhappy
Isabella sends a letter to Nelly saying “Is Mr.
Heathc
Heathcliff
：
1.
The main
character
，
O
rphaned as a
child
, he is constantly on the
outside, constantly losing people.
Although he and Catherine Earnshaw profess that
they
comp
lete each other,
her decision to
marry Edgar Linton
almost destroys their
relationship. He
spends most of his life
conte
mplating
and
acting
out revenge. He is
abusive, brutal, and cruel.
2.
Most people thought that Heathcliff was
devil or at least
he should not do too
many things wrongly. However, I thought him a
victim.
As an orphan
Heathcliff did not know where he was from and who
he was. When he was
young, he was
always abused and laughed at by Hindly. Only two
people loved him, one
was Mr. Earnshaw,
who died when he was young, the other one was
Cathy, who loved
him but suffered from
great pain. To him, Cathy was everything,
a
fter Mr. Earnshaw‘s
death.
Unfortunately, Cathy‘s childish choice made them
unhappy all their life span.
Heathcliff
not only lost Cathy, but also lost everything.
He can forgive the one who did harm to
him, but cannot forgive the ones who did harm to
Cathy. He loved Cathy so much that when
Cathy left him, no one can bring him happiness.
He became crazy, and lost himself in
unbearable pain. To a desperate man, what he
could do for her was to take revenge.
What he did further was for Cathy.
At
last, he found little Cathy and Hareton were just
like Cathy and him when they were
young; he came to himself and realized
that it was a bad ending. Though few happiness
he had had all his life, he stopped
bringing pain for the young, and left the broken-
hearted
world to be with Cathy, the
woman who was the fountainhead of his suffering
but was the
only who could give him
happiness. I see, although he had done too many
wrong things,
he was a kind man by
nature.
Wuthering Heights
is a love novel. It has praised human‘s
mo
ral excellence, has attracted
the will of the people‘s darkness,
unfolding the human with the common custom life
and
pursueing the fine mind.
3
.
To everyone
but Catherine and Hareton, Heathcliff seems to be
an inhuman monster
—
or even
incarnate evil. Fro
m a literary
perspective, he
is
more
the
embodiment o
f the
Byronic hero (attributed to the writer
George Gordon, Lord Byron), a man of stormy
emotions who shuns humanity because he
himself has been ostracized; a rebellious hero
who functions as a law unto himself.
Heathcliff is both despicable and pitiable. His
one
sole passion is Catherine, yet his
co
mmitment to his
notion of
a higher love does
notReaders need to
determine if his
revenge is
fo
cused on his
lost position
at Wuthering
Heights, his loss of
Catherine to Edgar, or if it his assertion of
dignity as a human being.
The
difficulty most readers have re
lating
to
and understanding Heathcliff is
the
fact that
he hates as
deeply as he loves; therefore, he is despised as
much as he is p
itied.
Heathcliff's Obsession in
Wuthering Heights
Throughout
Wuthering Heights
two
distinct yet related obsessions drive Heathcliff's
character: his desire for Catherine's
love and his need for revenge. Catherine, the
object
of his obsession, becomes the
essence of his life, yet, in a sense, he ends up
murdering
his love.
Ironically, after her death, Heathcliff's
obsession only intensifies.
Heathcliff's
love for Catherine enables
him to endure Hindley's maltreatment after Mr.
Earnshaw's
death. But after overhearing
Catherine admit that she could not marry him,
Heathcliff
leaves. Nothing is known of
his
life
away
fro
m her, but he returns with money.
Heathcliff
makes an attempt to join the
society to which Catherine is d
rawn.
Upon his return, she
favors him to
Edgar but still he cannot have her. He is
constantly p
resent, lurking around
Thrushcross Grange, vis
iting
after hours
, and longing to be buried
in a connected grave
with her so their
bodies would disintegrate into one. Ironically,
his obsession with
revenge seemingly
outweighs his obsession with his love, and that is
why he does not
fully
forg
ive Catherine for marrying Edgar.
After Catherine's death, he must
continue his revenge
—
a
revenge that starts as
Heathcliff
assumes control of Hind
ley's house and
his son
—
and continues with
Heathcliff taking
everything
that is
Edgar's.
Although Heathcliff constantly professes his
love for Catherine, he has no
proble
m atte
mpting to ruin
the life of her daughter. He
views an
ambiguous world as black and white: a world of
haves and have
-nots. And for
too long, he has been the outsider.
That is why he is determined to take everything
away
fro
m those at Wuthering
Heights and Thrushcross Grange who did not accept
him. For
Heathcliff, revenge is a more
powerful e
motion than love.
Catherine
Earnshaw
The love of
Heathcliff's life. Wild, impetuous, and arrogant
as a child
, she grows up
getting everything she wants. When two men fall in
love with her,
she torments both of
them. Ultimately, Catherine's selfishness ends up
hurting everyone
she loves,
includ
ing herself.
Often viewed as the epitome
of the free spirit,
Catherine is torn
between two worlds. On one hand, she longs to be
with Heathcliff, her
soul mate: their
life together, growing up and playing on the
moors, represents the
freedom and
inno
cence of childhood. On the other,
she recognizes what a marriage to
Edgar
can do for her socially, and she enjoys those
things that Edgar can provide for her.
Ultimately, she is self-absorbed and
self-centered, and although she claims
to love
both
Heathcliff and
Edgar, she loves herself more, and this
selfish love ends up hurting
everyone
who cares for her. Not until she nears death does
Catherine turn exclus
ively
towards Heathcliff, abandoning Edgar.
Ironically, Heathcliff does not fully forgive her,
and because of this, Edgar is the man
who gives every appearance of loving
Catherine
unconditionally.
Edgar Linton
Catherine's husband and Heathcliff's rival. Well-
mannered and
well-to-do, he
fa
lls in love with and marries
Catherine. His love for he
r enables him
to
overlook their
incompatib
le natures.
Edgar represents the
typical Victorian hero,
possessing
qualities of constancy and tenderness; however, a
non-emotional intellectual
is not the
type of person who can make Catherine happy in the
long run. Edgar loves and
understands
Catherine more than anyone realizes, but love
alone is not enough to
sustain a
relationship. He
ends up
losing
everything
—
his
wife,
his
sister, his daughter,
and his home
—
to
Heathcliff because good does not always overcome
evil. He is a foil for
Heathcliff.
Edgar represents the typical Victorian
hero, possessing qualities of constancy and
tenderness; however, a
non-e
motional intellectual is not the
type of person who can
make Catherine
happy in the long run. Edgar loves and understands
Catherine more than
anyone realizes,
but love alone is not enough to sustain a
relationship. He ends up losing
everything
—
his
wife, his
sister, his daughter, and his
ho
me
—
to
Heathcliff because
good does not always
overcome evil. He is a foil for Heathcliff.
Cathy Linton
Daughter of Catherine and
Edgar. A mild form o
f her mother, she
serves as a reminder of her mother's
strengths and weaknesses. (Note: For the purpose
of clarity, the younger Catherine is
referred to as
is Note, and her mother
is
referred to as
inal text.)
Cathy's nature, a
comb
ination of both her parents, is key
to revis
ing the past. Her
wildness and willfulness lead her to
Wuthering Heights and the problems and
p
itfa
lls
related
therein. Her constant loyalty, good nature, and
perseverance, however,
eventually
restore order and love to the farmhouse, thwarting
Heathcliff's
plans for
revenge. Just as Catherine's presence
dominates the first half of the text, Cathy's
rules
the second. Edgar tries to keep
her from Wuthering Heights (and fro
m
Heathcliff), but
her attraction to a
man and her independent nature
—
characteristics that
mirror her
mother
—
once again make Edgar's
appeals ineffective.
Linton
Heathcliff
Son
of Heathcliff and Isabella. Weak and whiny (both
physically and emotionally), he serves
as a pawn in Heathcliff's game of revenge. He
marries Cathy.
Hareton
Earnshaw
Catherine's
nephew, son of
Hindley. Although uneducated
and
unrefined, Hareton has a staunch sense of pride.
He is attra
cted to Cathy but put off
by her attitude. His generous heart
enables the two of them to eventually
fa
ll in love and
marry.
Hareton is the only person to mourn Heathcliff's
death.
More of a son to
Heathcliff
than Linton, Hareton exhibits a sense of nobility
by rema
ining
loyal to the
only
father he ever really knew.
Although he
loses his
inheritance
, he
does not
bear a grudge
toward Heathcliff. For
most of the text, he serves as a reminder to
Heathcliff of what his
father, Hind
ley, had done.
But toward the end of the novel, Hareton begins to
remind
Heathcliff of Catherine. Hareton
even stands up to Heathcliff on Cathy's
behalf.
Because
he has never
experienced love himself, readers do not know for
sure o
f Hareton's
capacity
for it; however, his pairing with Cathy at the end
of
Wuthering Heights
seems
to
suggest what Heathcliff may have
been like under different
circumstances.
Ellen (Nelly) Dean
The primary
narrator and Catherine's servant. Although
she is one person capable of
relating
the majority of the events
that occurred, she is not
without bias
Nelly serves as both outsider
and
insider as she narrates the primary
story of
Wuthering
Heights
. Although she does
not exhibit the extreme lengths of cruelty shown
by
Heathcliff and Catherine, Nelly
often is an instigator who enjoys the
conflict around her.
Nelly can be seen
as a combination of Heathcliff's cruelty and
Catherine's
self-centeredness.