Friday, March 24, 2006

In defense of Heathcliff

This post is a response to the discussion in Frankengirl's blog about Heathcliff's character.

This is from one of my previous personal essays on Heathliff.

Why is it that SO many people call me crazy when I tell them I am fond of Heathcliff?
Yesterday I had a conversation with a few people about it too..and they are just like "He is so evil. You must be insane to like him." To an extent I can see their point...but still...most people I've talked to just don't see ANY good in him. And I think that is just too sad: the fact that they can't appreciate his good qualites and see him for who he really is.

What about his devotion to Catherine?
What about the innocence that was stolen from his youth?
What about the fact that Cathering was drawn to him because he allowed her to be wild and free like she wanted to be?
What about the fact that Hindley mistreated him?
What about the fact that he was so imaginative?
What about the fact that he loved a woman so much he would go to the extent of digging up her grave because he couldln't let go?
What about the fact that he begged for Cathy to haunt him as a ghost because he couldnt' bear to be left alone without her?
What about the fact that he was NOT like the other pretentous insipid young men of that period (like Linton or Hindley)?
What about the fact the he was trapped by people and a Society that didn't allow him to be himself?
What about the fact that happiness and love was denied to him?
What about the fact that Heathcliff and Catherine had their own religion? their religion was love and like believers of any faith, they sought to faithfully follow their own. Their Heaven was with each other, regardless of whether it was on earth or elswhere.

People look at Heathcliff in two ways: the ideal lover or the worst nightmare. My inclination is towards the fomer.
True..I can see how one could interpret his actions as evil. Yes he should not have mistreated Isabella. Yes he should not have mistreated young Cathy. Yes he should not have been so manipulative. But if we put all that in a context based on what happened in his past, then his actions don't look so wholly evil. The best part is, Emily Bronte sympathizes with him as well-all along the course of the book. She is not wholly resentful towards even his most "evil" actions. Instead, she draws the reader's interest and sympathy. Or so I feel.

Often people fail to look at WHY Heathcliff was driven to be "evil" . He was driven to do so BECAUSE he was not allowed to be HIMSELF. When he goes against his nature, he does not know or realize how to respond. He was a poor, timid, little boy when Mr Earnshaw brought him to Wuthering Heights and he tasted real love and affection for a brief period with the old man and Cathy. When Hindley stole that away from him after Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff's only respite rested in his relationship with Catherine. He only wanted to love and be loved. Now tell me, is that too much to ask? Not at all.
Heathcliff's capacity to love was like the vastness of the moors around him. In fact, the moors ARE an outward manifestation of Heathcliff's qualities. They are wild and free and a source of freedom and strength. On the moore Catherine can let go of the restraints of home (and Society) and she can let her imagination run free. She can be who she really is.
When Catherine goes against her nature and marries Linton (thereby signalling the start of her doomed existance), Heathcliff is driven to go against his nature as well. When one's only chance of love is taken away from one, what is one supposed to do? Although I don't agree with the way he mistreated and manipulated people afterward, I can sympathize with him and understand why he did so. He is NOT evil by nature; the world arond him MADE him to be so. How can you dislike someone who was intrinsically innocent, when the world with its evil propensities ought to be the real culprit?

6 comments:

mysticgypsy said...

Hi Frankengirl :)
I will spare you this time :P (just joking). But I do see you point: the novel does beg those very questions you pose. However, it shows that destruction is a combined result from the individual as well as other forces around them. If Catherine and Heathcliff were free to love in the absence of Hindley or the Lintons (their ferocious dog to be precise)perhaps they would not have destroyed each other and the people aroud them. Hindley taught Heathcliff the meaning of revenge. The Lintons' dog (symbolizing Fate)seperated them. The power of Wuthering Heights lies in the humans' raw desire to overcome Fate (that is ordained)even as Fate inflicts torture resulting in death. However, it is only outside the realm of earthly Fate, can Catherine and Heatchliff live together in happiness (they are walking ghosts). Destruction cannot destroy them because they did not ask to destroy in the first place.

Panacea said...

Hello, I hope you don't mind me commenting but I couldn't resist.

I'm no Bronte expert but I did do my final high school thesis on Wuthering Heights, so I know a bit about Heathcliff.

Why is it that SO many people call me crazy when I tell them I am fond of Heathcliff? Everyone keeps telling me the same thing. Its easy to see Heathcliff as a one dimentional villan, but at the end of it, if you go deeper, it wasn't what Emily Bronte was trying to tell us through the book. She wanted us to be sympathetic towards him otherwise she wouldn't him such a peaceful end. He doesn't die as a tormented.

I can't say that he's the epitome of goodness but every real person cannot be catagorized into good and evil. Yes, he does have several negative aspects to his character, but they only come out due to the bitterness and loss of Catherine and his desire for revenge against the people who mistreated him. Idealy that does not seem like something good, but that is exactly how people are in real life. Everybody has the need for revenge.

If Isabella had only listened to Catherine, the whole sequence of events that led to her being mistreated wouldn't have occured (Sorry, Isabella is not one of my favourite characters and for some reason I can't make myself feel sorry for her because she brought it on herself)

People look at Heathcliff in two ways: the ideal lover or the worst nightmare I personally don't think he's either one. He's too passionate to be the ideal lover or an evil nightmare. His emotions overwhelm him so much that he can hardly bear to control them himself and that is what leads to him opening a side of Catherine's grave.

I personally don't agree with his mistreatment of Hareton and then later on Cathy and also Linton to a certain extent (but Linton is inufferable!) but I can understand his need for that kind of revenge.

Sorry this has become much longer than I expected it to be...

mysticgypsy said...

Hi Panacea!
Lovely seeing you here :D and thank you for your comments!

"She wanted us to be sympathetic towards him "
YES! I think we are to sympathize with him as we should with Emily. Emily had a rather hard side to her nature as well. And like you said, people are multi-dimensional. No one is purely good or evil.

I am not too fond of Isabella either, but Heathcliff did dupe her into thinking he was inlove with her. She was deluded, and should have listened to Catherine and searched for signs of Heathcliff's constancy to Catherine.

I am still trying to ascertain whether too much passion will prove destructive in the absence of outside forces (such as refined Society in Wuthering Heights).

mysticgypsy said...

Hi Frankengirl!
Thank you for your lively comment! :)
I am glad you enjoyed the movie. I agree with what you said about Fienne's portrayal of Heathcliff. I too looked for the "boy" in him but was rather disappointed. Not to metion he was too old. Aside from that, he acted well though.

I thought that Binoche's French accent was marked and seemed rather inconsistent with Catherine's nature as a Yorkshire lass. Nevertheless, I did like her minx-like portrayal of the two Catherines. I agree that Catherine (the elder) is not a very likeable character. However, I feel for the child that she used to be and tend to sympathize with her for this reason...

Wuthering Heights is definitly very symbolic, and as you said, quite an impossible novel to film.
A critic has noted that the union of Catherine and Heathcliff is so symbolic that he called it the search for the eternal union of the male and female.

mysticgypsy said...

Hi Frankengirl!
"I suspect it speaks to you on many levels, but I’m guessing one of them is your passion against the duplicity people are forced into by society??"
Yes! It is indeed one of the reasons I love this novel so. The other reason is the intensity of emotion it invokes. To me, Wuthering Heights=Passion. Period. By this I don't mean the characters necessarily, but the book as a work of art.

"I cannot tolerate Heathcliff’s domestic violence against his wife. And if we put him on a pedestal as a “hero” than I fear it justifies brutality in passion."
I agree with you. I do not approve of his treatment of Isabella either. He should have been more kinder towards her.
This shows the complexity in his nature: as much as he can be loving to Cathy, the same love causes violence towards others.
Perhaps we are drawn to such characters as Heathcliff because we gain pleasure in tearing them apart:\

"On the other hand, I fear overanalyzing the novel (any novel, really) because it may “civilize” our own primal reactions and passionate devotions, which – in so many ways – Heathcliff himself might find intolerable? - ;)"
Exactly! It is very emotionally draining to even analyze Heathcliff. Because it is much easier to dismiss him as "pure evil" and moving on, by being "evil", he makes the "intolerable" worth questioning.


"I fear losing our subjectivity altogether. Becoming only brains without hearts. "
I think we should be forced to analyze texts and delve deeper into the characters. Sadly, this is beyond the scope of formal academic papers because one can get away with a less-challenging idea and good (formulaic) writing.

Unknown said...

My sir have given me a topic to write in defense of Heathcliff...can anyone help me that how could i defend Heathcliff...??