revenge

About Heathcliff's Revenge        In chapter 27 to 31, Heathcliff's revenge become more server. For instance, he abused Hareton. He didn't let Hareton receive any education. In addition, he demand Hareton to do servant's work. Therefore, Hareton grew up as a barbarian. He behaved rudely and was ill-mannered. Do you remember how Hindley treated Heathcliff after Mr. Earnshaw's death when he was just a child? I guess Heathcliff released his hate for Hindley on Hareton ,as a result of he was Hindley's son. In a sense, Hareton's suffering was just like the reflection of Heathcliff's childhood.
        Heathcilff demand Linton to make an appointment with Catherine and then he imprisoned Catherine in Wuthering Heights. At that time Edgar was sick and going to die. He also hated Edgar because were it not for Edgar, Catherine might had been his wife. In a sense, Edgar deprived his lover. Thus, he refused to let Catherine go home in order to make Edgar suffer the feelings of losing relatives and lover especially when he was facing death. (see p.228)
        Heathcliff demanded Catherine to marry his weak son, Linton. In this way, Catherine's property became Linton's.   Then, after Linton's deathe, the property belonged to Heathcliff himself. That's why he ill-treated Linton and let him became weaker and weaker. When Catherine asked him to find a doctor for Linton, he refused. Besides, he said "His life is not worth a farthing, and I won't spend a farthing on him." (see p.243) His son was just a tool of revenge in his plan. I feel that he dind't have any emotion for his son, or he won't treat Linton in this way. Maybe his son's name, Linton, reminded him of Edgar Linton who deprived his lover and made him suffer the torment of being betraied.

        By the way, I want to talk about why Heathcliff want to revenge by stretching Hindley's and Edgar's property but not killing them. I analyze there are two reasons. First, he deprived their property just like how they did to him when he was a child. He suffered and lost too much in his childhood. He lost almost everthing. Therefore he want them to taste the feelings of losing everthing,too. Second, do you remember the reason why Catherine chose Edgar not him to marry. One was because he was not as rich as Edgar Linton and couldn't give Catherine a higher social status. Therefore, Catherine married Edgar Linton although she loved Heathcliff much in her mind.
        Why did Heathcliff come back to revenge? He could just went away and let time to cure his sadness. I think it was all because his deep love for Catherine. As we know, the other side of love was hate. Were it not for love, there wouldn't be so many revenge in this novel.

REVENGE in Wuthering Heights

Revenge can be considered one of the major themes in Wuthering Heights. It is present roughly
from the beginning to the end of the novel , mainly portrayed by the character of Heathcliff. In
this essay we will try to examine the different forms of revenges , the different avengers and
their motivations more or less in a chronological order .

It is first of all very interesting to note that though Heathcliff is associated with revenge ,
actually the first character to revenge himself is Hindley. His prime motivation is love , or to be
more precise the lack of love. He decides to persecute Heathcliff , because he feels this later
has usurped his position in his father ‘s love. He refuses to allow the curate to continue
Heathcliff’s education and forces the still very young boy to work as a farm-hand "his
treatment was enough to make a fiend from a saint " Hindlley ‘s function is actually sewing
the seeds of Heathcliff ‘s deferred but terrible vengeance .Hindley starts what we could call a
cycle of revenge , that will only end with the death of Heathcliff .Quickly Heathcliff will
transform from the victim to the oppressor. Already in chapter 7 Heathcliff is determined to
make Hindley pay and says to Nelly :"I don’t care how long I wait , if I can only doe it , at
last ."

This is only the first step of a very long process of revenge . When Heathcliff leaves , his
motivation for doing so are not expressed , but I think , that he actually leaves for two different
reasons . The first and most obvious is to escape Hindley ‘s treatment , the second to acquire
enough power , in this case through education and wealth to take his revenge on his second
target : the Lintons . When deciding to destroy the Lintons Heathcliff has multiple motivations .
He first of all wants to destroy whom he considers has stolen Cathy from him , he also wants to
destroy the family whom he considers has oppressed him while they had the power to do so .
He wants to destroy this family as well as affirm his social superiority . His revenge on Hindley
and on Edgar Linton, who marries Catherine Earnshaw, and his deliberate attempts to bring
down and degrade both families as he himself had been degraded , is terrible .

To achieve his aims he leaves the Heights and returns three years later as an apparently well
educated rich young man .Revenge is actually the dominant theme of the second part of the book
.His revenge scheme is extremely pernicious and could be considered evil. When he comes
back he announces Cathy "I would have torn out his heart and drunk his blood " speaking of
Edgar. Being wise in his evil thoughts , he decides to both seduce Isabella , or let himself be
seduced by her , and to raise Hareton , therefore confiscating him from the authority of his father
, and making his father a financially depended drunk man .

When Isabella falls in love with Heathcliff she is in fact falling in love with the Byronic hero
Heathcliff acts for some time . Soon after her marriage appearances are deceived , and
Heathcliff is in fact treating her in a sadistic way . She is alone , Heathcliff doesn ‘t keep her
company : " I feel particularly cheerless seated here in worse than solitude. " Combined with
solitude is the impression of living in a madhouse : Hindley wants to kill Heathcliff " I can ‘t
resist going up every night , and trying his door . If I once find it open he ‘s done for " ,
Joseph is swearing all the time " Hareton thah willn’t sup the pooridge tuh neeght : they’ ll
be nowt bud lumps as big as maw nave " . In fact this is the first step of his revenge scheme .
He both separates the Linton ‘s by marrying Isabella , and takes his revenge on Catherine by
marrying one of the Linton’s .

The flight of Isabella for London , seems to mark a pause in his revenge scheme . In fact
Hareton his child , will be one of the tools of his revenge . With the death of Catherine ,
considered as a disguised suicide by some interpreters , Heathcliff seems alone in the world
and he becomes even more devilish and avengefull than ever . With the death of Hindley a few
months later , Heathcliff becomes the proprietor of Wuthering Heights . The once servant is now
the master . He is now free of his actions , and starts treating Hareton in a degrading way , just
how he was treated . More than the desire of revenge , Heathcliff sort of re-enacts the past .
When Linton comes back to the Grange , swiftly Heathcliff sends Joseph to claim his
"property " .

The peak of Heathcliff revenge is in fact when he confides to Nelly that he wants to marry Cathy
and Linton together . The pattern of his revenge is now perfectly clear . He wants to marry
Cathy and Linton together , in order to secure himself both Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering
Heights . In fact Edgar’ s health situation helps Heathcliff ‘s plan of revenge , since deeply
concerned for Catherine , he himself thinks marriage with Hareton would be the best thing . As
Heathcliff is not naturally what could be called an adept of the soft method , in his
determination he locks both Catherine and Nelly for four days and four nights using Hareton as
jailer . Catherine and Nelly are clearly dominated by Heathcliff that only desires on thing : the
marriage of Catherine and Linton as a simple revenge device .

In his revenge Heathcliff both uses force and tyranny . When finally Catherine and Linton are
married to each other and Edgar dead , Heathcliff is both possessor of wealth and power , since
he is now alone chief of a " clan ". With this marriage , we again see the desire of Heathcliff to
repeat the past . Catherine first generation had moved from Wuthering Heights to Thrushcross
Grange Catherine second generation has now moved from Thrushcross Grange to Wuthering
Heights .

Only considered through this scope , Wuthering Heights could be named Revengefull Heights ,
but if the theme of revenge is present all throughout the novel , mainly in the second part ,
Wuhering Heights is not a novel of revenge. Revenge is present , but it is in fact used to
underline more important things such as the power of Heathcliff ‘s love for Catherine , or more
generally as a sort of guiding thread for the plot . But as Wuthering Heights is such a work of art
, it is very difficult to really understand the author ‘s message , and this is therefore all pure
speculation .

HENTZ Jean Samuel

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