Wuthering Heights

5 Pages 1290 Words

Brilliance In The Stroke Of A Pen
Someone once said, “No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting.” That someone was probably very famous in their own right but as with all famous or even merely memorable quips, no one seems to remember who spoke, only what was spoken. And, as with all memorable quips, this one is applicable to a great many things in life and imagination. However, this simple phrase is applicable to nothing if not the character of Heathcliff of the novel Wuthering Heights. Admittedly, the human race is forever focused on the characters who intentionally disturb and harm other and create damaging situations to their own avail. Despite, or maybe purely to spite, popular morals, the characters who display an utter disregard for the natural structure of human existence are usually the ones deemed iconic and the most thoroughly scrutinized. As is the case with Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff. Now, if only Bronte’s characters and their motivations were so simple. No, Bronte had to paint brilliance with the stroke of a pen, she had to funnel hate, love, rage, jealousy, passion, and the deepest complexities of human emotion through the tip of her quill. She had to possess the keen artistry to make her readers question every thought, action, and motive behind the embodiment of complexity that is Heathcliff. Is it the simple and superficial division of Heathcliff and his love, Catherine’s social class that motivates Heathcliff to seek revenge? Or does the foundation of that rage burrow much deeper than the shallow, superficial surface into the sagacious privacy of the human experience? Or is Heathcliff simply a character lost and meandering through the puddles of human experience, hazy with opaque morals and mistaken ideals? What is it that truly motivates Heathcliff and his quest for vengeance?
Some believe Heathcliff to be inhuman, described by some to be sadistic and demonic. Granted, Heathcliff’s revenge...