Review Of Wuthering Heights Essay, Research Paper

Julie Wells

Review of Wuthering Heights

Bronte wrote a horrifying story of deceit, unrequited love, and ghosts, but at the same time, she wrote a bittersweet narration of the tangled web of two families. These families, the Lintons and the Earnshaws, were intertwined through a series of marriages and love affairs, and had a great effect on each other’s lives. In Wuthering Heights, the first generation was the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Linton and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw. The second generation was Edgar and Isabelle Linton and Hindley and Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an orphan that Mr. Earnshaw found on the street. As soon as Heathcliff started living at the Earnshaw home, Wuthering Heights, relationships started to dissolve. The first to dissolve was the father-son relationship between Mr. Earnshaw and Hindley. Heathcliff ended their relationship because Mr. Earnshaw tended to favor Heathcliff and Hindley was aggravated by this favoritism. The next relationship to be destroyed by Heathcliff was the relationship between Nelly and Catherine. After Mr. Earnshaw died, Nelly tried to take care of Heathcliff and she saw that Catherine was insulting him. Heathcliff may not have meant to end Nelly’s positive feelings towards Catherine, but he managed to indirectly obliterate their friendship. Although the intensity of the human relationships in Wuthering Heights is exaggerated, it is still relevant to emotions in the real world. The intensity of the relationships involving Heathcliff always skyrocketed because he was such a dynamic, unpredictable character. Heathcliff directly and indirectly acted as a catalyst in destroying the relationships between many characters.

The marriage of Cathy (Jr.) and Linton was not one of bliss and love; rather, it was one of fear and sadness. Heathcliff directly destroyed the relationship between Cathy and Linton by encouraging Linton to court and marry Cathy. After Isabelle had Linton, Heathcliff made no attempt to contact either of them. However, as soon as Isabelle died and Linton came to Thrushcross Grange, Heathcliff, all of a sudden, wanted him to come and live with him. When he first came to Thrushcross Grange, Cathy developed a liking for him. After he moved to Wuthering Heights, Cathy continued to write him letters and fell in love with him. The whole time this romance was taking place, Heathcliff was pressuring Linton into loving Cathy and trying to steer him towards marrying her. During this exchange of love letters, Linton was not actually writing the letters. Heathcliff was telling his son what to write. The destruction of their relationship began when Heathcliff took his son to live with him. From then on, Heathcliff controlled every move Linton made. Heathcliff despised his son. He thought he was pathetic. Heathcliff wanted to own both houses, and the only way to accomplish this was by forcing Linton, who would probably predecease him, to marry Cathy because she would own Thrushcross Grange as soon as her father, Edgar, died, which was bound to be soon. This affected their relationship because he was making Linton court her. If Cathy had not been willing, he would have forced Cathy to marry Linton as well. As a result of the control Heathcliff had over Linton, Linton became more irritable and sickly. Heathcliff turned the one thing his son loved into a nightmare. He turned Linton’s romance into a way to get property, which destroyed Linton and Catherine’s relationship.

The friendship between the two Linton children, Edgar and Isabelle, is both indirectly and directly affected by the aspirations of Heathcliff. Although Heathcliff does not at first encourage Isabelle’s love or provoke it, he does marry her later, which ruins their relationship as brother and sister. When Isabelle first professes to Catherine her love for Heathcliff, Catherine mistreats the information. She announces it to Heathcliff. Because of his vengeful personality, he decides to marry Isabelle so that he can one day be the heir of Thrushcross Grange and also get revenge on Edgar. Heathcliff knows that if he marries Isabelle, Edgar will no longer speak to her. Along with hating Isabelle for being weak and fluffy, he hates Edgar for marrying Catherine. She was his soulmate, and then Edgar took her away. He would do anything to avenge himself, and he knows that his marriage with Isabelle would break Edgar’s heart. In this way, their sibling relationship is affected by Heathcliff and his own aspirations.

Heathcliff treats Hareton as Hindley treated him, and therefore creates a bitter brute; Heathcliff treats Linton better than Hareton and therefore creates a proud wimp. The hatred and envy between these two characters is not created or directly affected by Heathcliff. However, by creating two totally contrasting personalities under one roof, he has indirectly wrecked a future relationship. When Heathcliff brings Linton into Wuthering Heights, it is obvious that Hareton and Linton are not going to get along. Heathcliff only furthers this problem by favoring Linton. He consciously tries to ruin what might have turned into a friendship because he does not want any positive relationships under his roof that would turn against him.

Whenever there is a positive, working relationship near Heathcliff that he can demolish, he will destroy it. Because he has never been able to have a valuable relationship or friendship with anyone, he takes his bitter resentment out on anyone he can. He destroys not only the relationships of Cathy and Linton, Edgar and Isabelle, and Hareton and Linton, but also those of Mr. Earnshaw and Hindley, Edgar and Catherine, and Nelly and Catherine. He unsuccessfully tries to prevent the relationship between Hareton and Cathy from becoming a positive, dear relationship. Heathcliff is like a test of true love. If the love of a couple can withstand Heathcliff’s power to destroy, it was meant to be. This is true for his relationship with Catherine as well as the relationship between Hareton and Cathy.