Wuthering Highs Essay, Research Paper
Throughout Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s personality could be defined as dark, menacing, and incubation. He is a unsafe character, with quickly altering tempers, capable of deep-seeded hatred, and incapable, it seems, of any sort of forgiveness or via media. In the first 33 chapters, the text clearly establishes Heathcliff as an wild, volatile, wild adult male and establishes his great love of Catherine and her use of him as the beginning of his sick wit and bitterness towards many other characters. However, there are certain tensenesss, contradictions, and ambiguities present in Chapter 34 that set up the true strength Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s feelings towards Catherine ; feelings so intense that they border on a covetous compulsion.
Chapter 34 begins with a tenseness in respect to Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s temperament. Since Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s visage has rarely expressed anything but a dark temperament, surely nil even remotely resembling joy, it comes as somewhat of a surprise when in the last chapter, immature Cathy, upon seeing Heathcliff, reports that he looks, & # 8220 ; about bright and cheerful & # 8212 ; No, about nil & # 8212 ; really much excited, and wild and glad ( 276 ) ! & # 8221 ; This is wholly unlike the Heathcliff that has been established up until this point. Even Nelly, who is well-accustomed to Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s personality and dark tempers is taken aback by the sudden alteration, so uncharacteristic of his usual pique & # 8211 ; & # 8221 ; & # 8230 ; dying to determine the truth of her statement, for to see the maestro looking sword lilies would non be an mundane spectacle, I framed an alibi to travel in ( 276 ) . & # 8221 ; Since Catherine has antecedently about ever been the cause of such wild temper fluctuations, it stands to ground that she has someway inspired this natural state and scaring joy in him every bit good.
During the concluding yearss of his life, Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s funny behaviour continues. He refuses to eat, absents himself from the company of Cathy, Hareton, or Nelly, disappears inexplicably for long intervals of clip and refuses to explicate his absences. Most distressing, his unusual exhilaration continues, doing uncomfortableness to all those around him, particularly Nelly. When Nelly asks him where he was the dark before his he began to exhibit this uneven elation, he tells her, & # 8220 ; Last dark, I was on the threshold of snake pit. To-day I am within sight of my Eden & # 8212 ; I have my eyes on it & # 8212 ; barely three pess to break up me ( 278 ) ! & # 8221 ; His statement is equivocal & # 8211 ; it does small to explicate his sudden alteration of wit and small to fulfill Nelly & # 8217 ; s wonder and admiration at his province. Joy in most characters in Wuthering Heights is an uplifting province associated with felicity and delighted excitement. However in Heathcliff, as Nelly observes, it is a atrocious, awful thing. In Heathcliff, the temper arouses chariness and fright in others and indicates some interior alteration so dramatic that its cause is about unthinkable.
Heathcliff offers no coherent account for his sudden alteration of province and the text offers no concrete solution as to what could hold caused his dark excitement. Therefore, the inquiry of his status is left mostly unreciprocated as Heathcliff continues to exhibit such uncharacteristic behaviour, animating all the more uneasiness in Nelly, particularly. He frightens her greatly several times with his agitated province. Once, upon meeting him in his room, Nelly tells Mr. Lockwood, & # 8220 ; I can non show what a awful start I got, by the fleeting position! Those deep black eyes! That smiling, and ghastly lividness! It appeared to me, non Mr. Heathcliff, but a hob ; and, in my panic, I let the candle crook towards the wall, and it left me in darkness ( 278 ) & # 8221 ; .
Even Nelly, who has ne’er earlier, even after many, many old ages of familiarity to Heathcliff, shown any bullying or fright of him despite his blazing shows of ferociousness, is shaken and haunted by his unusual visual aspect and his agitated status. So flooring is his visage that she even asks herself if he is a graverobber or a lamia. Since he is non willing to unwrap wholly what it is that is doing him such exhilaration, Nelly, and all of Bronte & # 8217 ; s audience, are left to chew over for themselves what could consequence such a alteration.
Of class, the lone thing antecedently that has caused Heathcliff to fluctuate so wildly in his tempers and to vibrate between such dramatically changing dispositions is Catherine. Nelly, H
aving been witness to Heathcliff’s tantrums of passion and furies in respect to Catherine before is astute plenty to recognition his visual aspect and unusual status to her former kept woman, even though she has been dead for many old ages. Heathcliff has antecedently professed the wretchedness Catherine’s decease has caused him and stated his desire to be near to her — his expectancy to run into her when he dies.
When Nelly attempts to function Heathcliff nutrient in the last chapter she finds Heathcliff watching some unseeable phantom with ecstatic attending. Though Nelly admonishes him for his refusal to eat and his hapless status, he ne’er moves his eyes from whatever it is he sees & # 8212 ; one may presume it is vision of Catherine, since his look is a conflicting one of & # 8220 ; both pleasance and hurting, in keen extremes & # 8230 ; ( 280 ) & # 8221 ; . Little else could elicit such utmost emotion in Heathcliff, and nil else, it seems, could do them apparent on his face. Apparently Heathcliff, seeing himself near decease, and despite their present separation, feels himself as near to Catherine as he can perchance be given the fact that he is still alive. And given this comparative propinquity, his temper has been heightened to a hallucinating agitation at the chance of seeing her once more.
With this expectancy, the text introduces another contradiction. Heathcliff assumes that he will be united once more with Catherine in ageless cloud nine when he dies. Given this belief, Heathcliff seemingly believes that Catherine is in Eden. He has admitted to Nelly legion times that he is an evil adult male, merciless, and set on retaliation towards his enemies, even if it means aching those who have ne’er wronged him & # 8211 ; immature Edgar Linton, and immature Cathy, in peculiar. Heathcliff realizes that he is filled with hatred and retribution and makes no alibi for his behaviour. Yet, since he imagines himself being reunited with Catherine after his decease, he seemingly feels that he will travel to heaven when he dies. This is a funny contradiction coming from a adult male who recognizes his evil and makes no effort to reform himself. Possibly Heathcliff holds no beliefs refering Eden or snake pit, but in the last chapter, he tells Nelly how close his psyche is to bliss, which seems to bespeak that he does believe in something following decease.
When Heathcliff does eventually decease, the cause of his decease is ne’er truly ascertained. His visage in decease is about a smiling, at the same clip a leer, harmonizing to Nelly & # 8211 ; a expression of life-like jubilance. His visage doesn & # 8217 ; t suggest which end he met & # 8211 ; the leer he wears in decease is near to his normal look in life. It must be assumed that his compulsion with Catherine, his despairing longing to be with her, and his yearning for decease was what finally killed him.
That such a yearning could really kill Heathcliff suggests that possibly what he was sing was more than love. It seems improbable that love would animate in Heathcliff such fury and choler as consumed his life for the many old ages following Catherine & # 8217 ; s decease. That love entirely could do his physical diminution and decease seems improbable as good. Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s status indicates that what he felt towards Catherine was more than love & # 8211 ; it was more like a violent compulsion, fueled by a huffy green-eyed monster and hatred of anyone who dared to stand between himself and her.
The text in the last chapter introduces several contradictions and tensenesss, but besides resolves them, in a elusive manner. Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s unusual behaviour and cryptic decease, harmonizing to the text, seems finally to be the consequence of his huffy compulsion with Catherine, and his inability to work rationally without her. The text implicates Heathcliff as about a lunatic & # 8211 ; seeing phantoms, joging about incoherently about his nearing decease, eschewing nutrient or anything else that might maintain him alive. Heathcliff went beyond what was sensible and rational in his love for Catherine & # 8211 ; his behaviour, as illustrated in the last chapter was fickle, and his decease upseting & # 8211 ; all indicants that Heathcliff was wildly obsessed with Catherine, a premiss which does much to decide many of the complexnesss in Chapter 34. Bronte does an first-class occupation of presenting complexnesss and tensenesss within the text and so deciding them nuance and finely through Nelly & # 8217 ; s narrative and observations and through Heathcliff & # 8217 ; s wild tempers and unpredictable actions.
