When he was rescued and brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, and introduced to the rest of the family he was seen as a thing rather than a child. While Mr. Earnshaw named him after his deceased son, the others usually referred to him as “it”. Catherine first spits him, Nelly puts him on the landing of the stairs hoping he’d disappear by the morning and Hindley just hates him, probably because he was jealous of Heathcliff. Although he and Catherine became inseparable, he was an outsider in the family, especially after the death of Mr. Earnshaw. This was mostly due to his mysterious origins and the fact that he was probably a gypsy, too. These were his formative years, and instead of having someone in his corner, he lacked love, friendship, …show more content…
A reader would expect him to possess some kind of virtue, as he resembles a romantic hero in a romance novel, but he doesn’t. The writer created Heathcliff to be “simultaneously attractive and horrifying”. Usually, heroes of romantic novels seem cold and dangerous at first, but later we realize that they’re devoted and loving, like Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy. Unfortunately, Heathcliff doesn’t change, and as the novel progresses, he becomes even more violent and cruel. Like he, himself pointed out, he tortures Isabella just to see how much she can take, he is purely sadistic as it amuses him. Another interesting thing about Heathcliff’s character is what Deirdre says, that he “is likened to a vampire, a ghoul, and a cannibal…All three terms are monstrous metaphors for Heathcliff’s “savage” rage, passion, and behavior.” (161) Heathcliff was wild, passionate and free, everything we connect to the nature and natural, and the opposite of what was expected by society, what was a social norm. Heathcliff’s temperament and character are the main reasons he will never belong to the higher class, never be accepted by the society even after acquiring the wealth, education, and manners required for