Section A Essay - Wuthering Heights - Heathcliff

Charlotte Brontë described Heathcliff as a “man’s shape animated by demon life – a ghoul”. To what extent do you think this is an accurate assessment of the ways in which Heathcliff is presented in the novel?

[40/40 A* - Not Timed]

Of all the characters in Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is arguably the most contentious and most complex – branded as a demon even in childhood, he develops into a sadistic, cruel, almost-clichéd Gothic villain in the second half of the novel. However, it is an oversight to fail to examine both the role of his torturous childhood and social exclusion as a demonised member of the working class, in leading to his own brutality and violence. In this sense – it is far too superficial to assume Heathcliff to be simply a ‘man’s shape animated by demon life’.

In many ways, Heathcliff is presented a typical gothic villain – fundamentally dark and twisted; evil incarnate. Even as a child he is branded ‘imp of Satan’, and in adulthood this connection to evil is made even more obvious – in the second half of the novel Heathcliff has so fully developed into the stock-character role of the villain that he almost becomes a parody of stereotypical gothic villainy. He is cruel and arguably sadistic in his actions – delighting at the thought of ‘turning [Isabella’s] blue eyes black’ and presenting the act of beating her as poetically as painting a masterpiece on a fresh canvas (‘painting on its white the colours of the rainbow’), showing an almost inhuman lack of compassion and love of brutality. Even his use of speech is intrinsically ‘gothic’ – he speaks gruffly, without wasting words, and uses imperatives (‘Speak!’, ‘Go and fetch...’ etc), making him seem intimidating and menacing. His dialogue is also littered with (often unnecessary) references to hell, evil, and violence (‘sent sleep to the devil’, ‘I’m in hell till you do’) - further cementing his role as a symbol of evil and brutality. Even Cathy brands him a ‘fierce, pitiless, wolfish man’ who will ‘seize and devour [Isabella] up’ – this lexicon of bestiality presents him as animalistic, the wild embodiment of evil unburdened by human conscience – and so in this sense he could clearly be seen as ‘a man’s shape animated by demon life’.

Additionally, Healthcliff is frequently presented as an almost supernatural figure – at times he is literally depicted as a ghoul. He is described, in childhood, as ‘as dark almost as if it came from the devil’ (which, some have argued demonstrates Bronte’s latent racism – though this seems a fairly tenuous position to hold, as ‘racism’ would have been so commonplace at the time that it is more likely that Bronte unconsciously chose this element of his appearance based on his role as a mysterious ‘outsider’, rather than any attempt at actual racism) which instantly sets him up as a potentially supernatural figure, in addition to his lack of any real ‘history’ which adds an element of mystery and ambiguity to his character. He also moves and acts in a very ‘ghostly’, eerie fashion  - ‘lurking’ in the shadows of buildings and waiting quietly so as to seem almost like an apparition to the unsuspecting Nelly, who is ‘uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor’. This presents him as almost supernatural, like a ghoul, and yet the fact that we are aware that he is human means he also embodies the gothic convention of the liminal – teetering on the edge of natural and supernatural, as he juxtaposes financial/moral realism with unearthly references to haunting and the supernatural.

However, in many ways Heathcliff’s character is far more psychologically complex that the typical gothic villain, and it is an oversight to merely brand him a fundamentally evil, ghoulish being. While it’s doubtful that Bronte intended to write Heathcliff as a synecdoche for how abused children become cruel adults and repeat this cycle of abuse (in fact, at the time the novel was written the idea of ‘child abuse’ would have been relatively unheard of, and Heathcliff’s childhood treatment would likely have been regarded as unfortunate, but not drastically shocking) by looking at his character through a modern psychodynamic lens, we can see that Heathcliff is far from some sort of abstract embodiment of evil – rather, he is a victim of his own consciousness, unwillingly moulded into a villainous abuser by the psychological trauma of his own childhood. After initially being found ‘starving and houseless’ on the streets of Liverpool, Heathcliff is ‘welcomed’ into a family that hates him – he is spoken of as ‘it’ (a pronoun which is both dehumanising and contemptuous), and ‘[Nelly and Hindley] plagued’ him ‘shamefully’ – treating him poorly and relentlessly (hence ‘plagued’) tormenting him.  Nelly even admits to demonising him unfairly throughout his life, and remarks that she ‘thought Heathcliff himself less guilty than [her]’ – giving an explicit insight into her part in Heathcliff’s poor treatment, and perhaps alluding to the role it played in shaping his character. In this sense, it is wrong to brand Heathcliff merely a ‘man’s shape animated by demon life’ – he is not intrinsically, essentially, evil, and (in a rather un-gothic fashion) beholds a web of psychological pain and suffering in childhood which sculpted his own cruelty and ‘evil’ ways.

Additionally, the presentation of Heathcliff as dark and evil can be seen not as a supernatural, ethereal demon – but as a representation (and demonization) of the aspiring working classes, firmly grounded in the concrete realm of financial and status-based conflict. His is frequently called a ‘gipsy brat’ by Hindley, and Edgar calls him a ‘ploughboy’ – even Cathy herself mockingly refers to the two of them as ‘of the lower orders’ and tells Nelly she can never marry Heathcliff as it would  ‘degrade’ her. Clearly a large amount of Heathcliff’s social exclusion stems from his class (or lack thereof) as opposed to any inherent evil or ghoulishness within him. When he returns to see Cathy, Edgar scoffs at the notion of Heathcliff being led ‘into the parlour?’ and ‘[suggests] the kitchen as a more suitable place for him’. Not only does this convey Edgar’s personal contempt for Heathcliff’s lower status, and provide us with an explicit contrast between the statuses of the two men (and hence a clear rationale for Cathy’s choice), it can perhaps act as a microcosm for society at large. Heathcliff is seen as a symbol of the aspiring working class, and perhaps this (as opposed to his evil nature) is why he is so demonised – the upper classes do not want any social climbing to occur, they want to keep the class system intact and prevent ‘ploughboys’ like Heathcliff from working their way up into the metaphorical ‘parlour’ of society. Additionally, Heathcliff’s own ‘evil’ scheme seems based firmly in finance and wealth-based revenge – he states that he is ‘resolved’ (indicative of a calm, calculated scheme – not a sporadic, sadistic, conventionally ‘gothic’ one) to claim both houses as his own, to earn the ‘triumph of seeing [his] descendent fairly lord of their estates’. Far from the scheme of a gothic villain, the workings of evil incarnate, Heathcliff’s actions seem to be financially motivated – an attempt to conquer the class system and get revenge upon his oppressors.

Ultimately, while on the surface Heathcliff seems to be almost a stock character of gothic villainy, and perhaps this was Bronte’s intention, a more thoughtful analysis returns a far more psychologically intricate conclusion. Far from a devil, he is merely an abused child, demonised and excluded throughout his life due to his working class status, and forced to perpetuate this same model of abuse onto others.