Nelly is confronted by Hareton. As a result of the confrontation, Nelly felt out of place compared to other characters involved with the family. She was of a lower status compared to Hareton as well as the other residents. At the same time it shows that Nelly is not scared of higher status, and can instantly confront it. It shows readers that Nelly is independent. 2. “Did she say she was grieved? ' he inquired, looking very serious. 'She cried when I told her you were off again this morning. ' 'Well, I cried last night, ' he returned, 'and I had more reason to cry than she. ' 'Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty stomach, ' said I. 'Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But, if you be …show more content…
(Nelly is speaking). Reader’s get to know Hindley personally the moment this event occurs. Hindley is a rude man, who is about to abuse his son. As a result, Nelly hides his son, Hareton, to protect him. This shows readers that Nelly is a guardian of Hareton and supports him. 4. Heathcliff, you may come forward, ' cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he would be compelled to present himself. 'You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants. ' Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming, 'Why, how very black and cross you look! and how - how funny and grim! But that 's because I 'm used to Edgar and Isabella Linton. Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me? ' (Bronte, 45). (Hindley is speaking). The audience can instantly see that there is a hierarchy that has developed between Hindley and Heathcliff. Hindley acts as if Heathcliff is his servant, and wants Heathcliff to welcome guests “like the other servants”. This will later develop and show reader’s how Hindley’s impact on Heathcliff has changed Heathcliff as a person. 5. “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he is handsome, Nelly, but because he is more myself than I am. Whatever our
Heathcliff resents her scorn. He desires to regain her approval. He attempts to be “decent” and “good” for her sake (Brontë 40). However, his attempt to be decent fails miserably. He resents the attentions that Catherine gives to Edgar. Catherine would rather wear a “silly frock” and have dinner with “silly friends” than ramble about the moors with him (Brontë 50). Heathcliff keeps track of the evenings Catherine spends with Edgar and those that she spends with him. He desperately wants to be with Catherine. When Catherine announces to Nelly her engagement to Edgar, Heathcliff eavesdrops, but leaves the room when he “heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him” (Brontë 59). Catherine has spurned his love, choosing Edgar over him. Heathcliff cannot bear this rejection. The love he possesses for her transcends romantic and filial love (Mitchell 124). He feels that he is one with her (Mitchell 123).
In this chapter, we see that Catherine has changed drastically from being a wild savage to a young mannered lady. Shockingly, we can see the distinctive difference between Heathcliff and Catherine's character. They were once the same, but this chapter serves as the platform to highlight the contrasting differences between these lovers. On one hand, one can argue that it develops their relationship immensely.
As a young orphan who is brought to Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is thrown into abuse as Hindley begins to treat Heathcliff as a servant in reaction to Mr. Earnshaw’s death. As a reaction to both this and Catherine discarding Heathcliff for Edgar, Heathcliff’s sense of misery and embarrassment causes him to change and spend the rest of his time seeking for justice. Throughout this time, Heathcliff leans on violence to express the revenge that he so seeks by threatening people and displaying villainous traits. However, Heathcliff’s first symptom of change in personality is when Heathcliff runs into Hareton after Cathy “tormented
In this passage, Bronte uses recurring patterns in the book to show how mistreatment can last through generations. When Heathcliff first came to Wuthering Heights, he was treated like a prince; respected, loved, and favored by all but Hindley, who was jealous of the affection given to Heathcliff. When Mr. Earnshaw passes and Hindley is left in charge, Heathcliff is forced to quit his studies and is constantly degraded to a servant position. The reader can infer that his upbringing halted his emotional maturity in a major way. He was damaged by Hindley bringing him down and when Catherine admitted to Nelly she would never marry Heathcliff because of his social position. He of course left to remedy his ruggedness, but it didn’t heal the emotional
After Hindley saw the way a piece of garbage (Heathcliff) was being treated by his father, whenever he entered Wuthering Heights his bad feelings came with him. His view on his originally normal, father had changed and he thought of his father more ‘an oppressor rather than a friend’ (38). Also, his hatred for Heathcliff kept towering. Hindley was angry that his father gave a man from the streets the privileges he initially was entitled to as Mr. Earnshaw’s son (38). Importance is found in this because this hatred for Heathcliff will continue being built upon until his death. Heathcliff ruined Hindley’s childhood and would never forgive him for that. Therefore, Hindley will take revenge against Heathcliff for taking his childhood by torturing
The events in a child’s life mold who he or she will one day become; for Catherine this was the day she and Heathcliff snuck out to the Thurshcross Grange and she injured her ankle. During her early years, Catherine was free spirited and was unable to understand or relate to her father’s serious attitude. In attempt to provoke her father Catherine,
After his wife passes away, the relationship between Hindley and Hareton is severely damaged the minute he claims he does not want his son in his lonely life. As a child, Hareton is deathly afraid of his father after a life threatening experience that Hindley is responsible for. During this incident, Hindley is drunk and does not pay attention to the fact that his son’s life is literally in his own hands. After this happens, Nelly explains, “Poor Hareton was squalling and kicking in his father’s arms with all his might, and redoubled his yells when he carried him upstairs and lifted him over the banister” (Bronte 72). This quote supports how scared the child truly is, but he is also too young to fully understand what is happening. Moments of fear turn into years of hatred as Hareton develops a execrate passion for his father. On the other hand, Hindley is constantly drinking all the time and severely mistreats the people around him. Thormahlen quotes, “At one point, Isabella thinks that he is 'on the verge of madness - though it has to be admitted that Hindley's lifestyle over the past five years or so could have reduced the most strong-minded man to that state, and Isabella is of course no medical authority” (Thormahlen). Verbal abuse is a common occurrence that involves Hindley because he cannot handle his own self destruction, and the servants in the house are deathly afraid that one day the abuse will turn physical. A shy servant quotes, “His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And truly it appeared as if the lad were possessed of something diabolical at that period” (Bronte 64). Hindley’s life choices over the course of five years strongly support his self destructive tendencies and the progression that has claimed his behavior proves this as well. The clear mistake he makes is to abandon the people he loves; resorting to
Hindley's wife frances had just died, they left a son named hareton to let hindley care for. HIndley was so ate up with grieving and mourning that he became a drunk and became a monster that got so drunk at times that he couldn't even remember getting beat up by Heathcliff. hindley became enraged on day and took his baby son from nelly. not realizing what the was doing the
After perusing Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, it becomes blatantly obvious that every character in the book is motivated to behave in a specific way. Although Heathcliff’s motivation is easily identified as revenge, and Cathy Heathcliff is motivated by fear to reside at Wuthering Heights, it would seem that two characters, Edgar Linton and Hindley Earnshaw, encounter similar circumstances, yet respond to them in completely different ways. By comparing and contrasting these two perplexing characters, perhaps the reason behind them acting so distinctly from one another can be revealed.
He is a tyrant! He torments me like a cat its prey. I shall make his suffering a thousand time worse than that everlasting flogging he gave me the night of that horrendous Christmas party. I shall make him live life like the fiend he is! I shall take everything from him. Even if it takes me to the edge of heaven or hell, I swear that once I am done with him, Hindley will never feel content again. Not until the day the icy hands of death rip him from the cursed life that I shall inflict upon him. I will take his blessed wealth from him. If it takes years to do so, then I shall do so with pleasure. I will rip Wuthering Heights from under the very legs that he stands! Hindley shall not suffer alone however… I shall put into action a plan of vengeance to all who have ever done me
Heathcliff’s proud commendation of spirits and the dead returning to walk the earth acts as a distressing reminder, a haunting that carries with it all the unfortunate history many would rather keep buried. It is yet another one of Heathcliff’s many Uncanny evocations. Nelly is appalled and condemned him, “You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff. Were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?” In this scene, Nelly is the voice of the Western perspective—logical and morally upright in the face of Heathcliff’s abject and strange actions which pay no regard to Victorian values or the desecration of a human corpse. To Heathcliff, his passion and love for Catherine is a spiritual force far more powerful than the accepted Western social rules he rebels against
“My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” (Brontë, 82)
The relationship between Heathcliff and Hindley revealed and developed the abusive nature of Heathcliff. Heathcliff was taken in as a young boy into a wealthy family that had two children. Ever since the day he was brought home the eldest son, Hindley, resented how the father favored him more. For example, Heathcliff threatened to tell their father if Hindley did not let him have his horse. This one childish threat had created the foundation of the resentment between the two men. Heathcliff threatened to tell their father that Hindley was making him feel unwelcome and abused emotionally, Hindley decided to not see if Heathcliff was going to follow through with the threat therefore gave him the horse. Later on through life, once the father dies, Hindley decides to take his absence as an excuse to start really physically abusing Heathcliff. He would beat him and punch him without thought of how this would transfer into the rest of his life. Heathcliff was also verbally assaulted by Hindley which is a twist on the traditional sense of cruelty. Hindley is demeaning towards Heathcliff and calls him a slave and make sure that he know that he is not equal with himself or his sister Catherine. This point planted the seed of doubt and not being good enough for the rest of his life. This continual mental assault forged the mindset of little Heathcliff to how he would exact revenge on Hindley for all of his wrongdoings. This cruelty from Hindley was due to the favoritism that Heathcliff received as a child, the death of his father, the death of his wife, and the constant reminder of his wife through his son. The constant cruelty is the motive for Heathcliff's actions once he returns to the Heights. Through baiting Hindley, in his own personal torment from his wife's passing, all the money and possessions are gambled away with Heathcliff as the new owner. Wuthering Heights itself
The presentation of childhood is a theme that runs through two generations with the novel beginning to reveal the childhood of Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, and with the arrival of the young Liverpudlian orphan, Heathcliff. In chapter four, Brontë presents Heathcliff’s bulling and abuse at the hands of Hindley as he grows increasingly jealous of Heathcliff for Mr. Earnshaw, his father, has favoured Heathcliff over his own son, “my arm, which is black to the shoulder” the pejorative modifier ‘black’ portrays dark and gothic associations but also shows the extent of the abuse that Heathcliff as a child suffered from his adopted brother. It is this abuse in childhood that shapes Heathcliff’s attitudes towards Hindley and his sadistic
Catherine informs Nelly of her upcoming marriage to Edgar, regardless of her feelings for Heathcliff. When Nelly questions if she is making the right decision, Catherine says, “My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks...Nelly, I am Heathcliff-he’s always, always in my mind...so, don’t talk of our separation again-it is impracticable...” (Bronte 82). Catherine is unable to even think of being separated from Heathcliff because their love is immortal. She is so positive their separation is “impracticable” because they have been physically isolation. No matter how long they remain isolated they will always have that solid bond of true love. It’s not only Catherine who is so sure of their inseparable bond but Heathcliff is too. Author John Allen Stevenson explores Heathcliff’s feelings of isolation from Catherine in “‘Heathcliff is Me!’ Wuthering Heights and the Question of Likeness”. “The independence is all Catherine’s... Heathcliff, however, always follows a lead that she establishes...‘I cannot live without my