DEF
- Filed under: experience
- Date: Sep 5,2008
Ⅳ. The analysis of Heathcliff
The course of the transmutation of the soul of Heathcliff can be divided into three periods. At the beginning, when he is a servant at Wuthering Heights, in his heart the passion of love overtakes that of hatred. At that time he mainly is a persistent lover oblivious of himself, and a person who is being persecuted and worthy of sympathy. Later, when he comes back to Wuthering Heights with the status of an upstart, he becomes a revenge maniac and a big landlord of two manors. The desperate love makes his hatred, which his hatred, which has been in his heart for a ling time, burst forth, together with the wickedness, and his inhuman revenge causes the tragedy of two families. It is in this period that Heathcliff loses himself, turning into an abominable oppressor from one that is oppressed. His life of this period is most important experience. In the end when he gives up his revenge and follows his dead lover with all his love his lost self finally comes back. The life-and-death love between Heathcliff and Catherine is really remarkable moving. As a person who comes from the bottom of the society, he suffers a lot from social prejudice and persecution, however, when his social status changes, he maltreats the weak and the innocent more savagely. It is here that he undergoes a qualitative change. It can be seen form here that Heathcliff’s degeneration of soul, which is showed in the course of vengeance, has a more profound tragic meaning than love affair.
A. The analysis of Heathcliff’s tragedy
Heathcliff is not only a devil who is only found of revenge but also a person who puts love above everything else. Heathcliff’s tragedy first is caused by various external factors. In addition, the fact that he sees love the most important thing may also be the crux. Heathcliff loves Catherine alone deeply and crazily. In some sense, it can be said that his love for Catherine in one day is more than that Linton has given to her heart and soul in eight years. What he sees and thinks is only the love between him and Catherine. Besides this, all that exist in the world are only faint shadows. During the time when Catherine is seriously ill, Heathcliff almost stays in the garden of Thrushcross Grange all day and all night, trying all the means to go into the Linton’s and meet Catherine. Facing dying Catherine, Heathcliff says wildly, “I have not broken your heart – you have broken it – and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you – oh God! Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?”12 From a series of painful reproachful questions of Heathcliff, from his heartbroken expression, readers hear lamentations of a desperate and distorted soul and can feel his disturbance, distress, depression, suffering and solitude. When Catherine dies, he dashes is head against the knotted trunk and howls, both his hand and forehead stained with blood; On the paint-coated windowsill, he writes Catherine’s name in various scripts; He digs the grave with bloody fingers and opens Catherine’s coffin, wanting to hug her and turn into dirt with her. The heavy anxiety tortures him all day and all night, and makes him not be able to have peace even for a minute. In the end he dies in anxiety and despair, turning into a ghost that wanders with Catherine on the wilderness or under the cliffs at night.
Heathcliff’s craziness above revenge is a kind of release of feeling, which has been repressed for a ling time. It is not only an abnormal revelation of his despair towards love but also a mass explosion of the hatred that has stored in his heart from the time when he was a child. When he has the power and chance to avenge, he turns depression into a kind of destruction energy and releases it, which makes him a devil- like person, it is understandable that in order to get Catherine’s live, he wants to be a decent gentleman. However, after Catherine dies, he still plays all kinds of nasty to seizes the property of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange,. This is purely out of hatred, one of the revengeful psychologies to satisfy him. For depending on the status of being the owner of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, he can totally put his enemies and their offspring under his control, and order out and torment them at will so that he can achieve a kind of superiority in psychology. He especially wants to see his enemies and their offspring in difficult position in order to get a sensation of pleasure from their misery or misfortune. When he faces his sinful works – the illiterate Hareton, he laughs with devilish pride. For him, the news that Linton is critically ill is the excellent one.
Heathcliff’s tragedy has double implications. It is both a live tragedy and a revenge tragedy and these two are inseparable. In some sense, the former is the direct cause of the latter and the latter is the extension and development of the former. The revenge tragedy of Heeathcliff first is caused by the social prejudice, which is based on class oppression, and the marital consciousness, which is determined by family status and wealth. In the work the story coincides with the writing time which belings to Victorian time. Family status that aristocracy stresses blending with the bourgeois money worship forms the social atmosphere of that time. Though Wuthering Heights is a lonely village far away from cities, it cannot avoid the invasion of this social atmosphere. This is the basic reason why Hindley incessantly schemes to strangle the love between his sister and Heathcliff. However, both Heathcliff and Catherine have string characters and if it is not because of the betrayal of Catherine, Hindley’s attempt may not have had been successful. Originally, the love between a poor servant and a rich lady is one that is completely beyond the limit of social strata and consciousness of wealth and one that is noble and pure. However, though Catherine loves Heathcliff till her death, she is not able to free herself from the fetters of traditional conception on the standard of choosing a spouse. Between the lord of Thrushcross Grange and the servant of Wuthering Heights, she chooses the former without hesitation and leads to their love tragedy. It is the desperate love that makes Heathcliff the pestilence of revenge.
B. The analysis of Heathcliff’s himself as a character of the novel.
Heathcliff is a soul, which is distorted by the capitalist society. After he is insulted and destroyed, Heathcliff who originally is kind and good turns into a devil. At the surface of things, it seems that the image of Heathcliff lacks a kind of complete moulding and some details are a little lacking on fidelity, however, from the aspect of the novel itself and the image of Heathcliff, the character of Heathcliff appears before the readers with an amazing truthfulness in nature, and forces people to admit that Heathcliff is really a deformed child of that society.
Heathcliff is an imaginary person, however, it is reasonable. Though his revenge is almost an abnormal one and beyond the range, which people can accept, when the insults, which he suffers, are talked about, it is impossible that he cannot be sympathized with sincerely. It can be said that the revenge that Heathcliff takes is the strongest revolt against the reality carried out by a lonely sufferer within his power. The love between Heathcliff and Catherine is just like raging flames, which cannot be hindered or put out by worldliness. It is also an indomitable struggle against the old time, which is manipulated by a certain evil power. In some sense, the reason why this novel has such a thrilling power and a soul-stirring passion is just that the swallowing-life love and the desperate struggle and the crazy vengeance are all depicted vividly and incisively. The intense degree of the vengeance duly reflects the bitterness of the persecution he has suffered and the deep extent of wounds his soul has got.
Ⅴ. Conclusion
At the stage of writing of Wuthering Heights. British were in a time social upheavals; capitalism was developing rapidly and exposing its inner defects gradually; social contradictions were intensifying and the social reality was complex and cruel. Though she never participated in any movement, Emily Bronte was imperceptibly influenced by the turbulent feeling and the spirit of revolt of the whole time. She showed the spiritual oppression, nervousness and the conflict of contradictions of an individual in the capitalist society of the nineteenth century and an unbelievably real picture which was totally distorted and was overwhelmed by fear, restlessness, pessimism and despair; and with her exquisite and unique understanding she grasped the main characteristic of capitalist society—money determines all. The reason why Hindley can be overweeningly arrogant and can ruin and torment Heathcliff, the reason why Catherine betrays her deeply loved Heathcliff and marries Edgar Linton, and the reason why Heathcliff can take revenge on Edger Linton and Hindley more savagely all lie in money.
In short, Heathcliff is, in reality, a man whose soul is torn between love and hate, and because of the depth of his passions, he hates as deeply as he loves. His forbearance, his leaving off and his revenge all have the tragic coloring. When later he completely turns into the opposite and becomes a more cruel Hindley and a much wealthier owner of tow manors, he changes wholly and has an ugly soul. However, this ugly soul is not born with him, but is the result of being distorted by aristocratic awareness of power and influence, consciousness of property, individualism and other various kinds of social atmosphere.
