How Does Heathcliff Change Throughout The Novel

Rose Canady

Cannon

AP Literature

30 Jan 2023

Heathcliff’s Narcissism in Wuthering Heights Many people say that going through trials strengthens and refines a person. While this is normally true for many protagonists in literature, it isn’t for Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights follows a man named Heathcliff from his abusive childhood to his tragic death brought on by a toxic love triangle. Heathcliff had many events during his life that could have majorly effected him for the better, but did not. Despite going through challenges that would normally strengthen a person, Heathcliff’s character changed for the worse throughout Wuthering Heights due to his narcisstic personality. Heathcliff suffered abuse from his adoptive brother Hindley

One would think it would’ve made him more empathetic and loving, but it didn’t at all. Catherine explains why she couldn’t accept his marriage, “‘It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him’,” (Bronte 59). Catherine did love Heathcliff, but because Hindley had degraded his social status so lowly she felt she could not marry him. Of course Heathcliff reacts very badly to Catherine’s rejection, because he is a narcissist. He runs away after Catherine refuses him, “Heathcliff had never been heard of since the evening of the thunder-storm, and, one day, I had the misfortune, when she provoked me exceedingly, to lay the blame of his disappearance on her,” (Bronte 65). Heathcliff completely disappears after Catherine’s answer, and it can be seen that it was because of her answer that he fled. The reason that this makes him a narcissist is because Heathcliff couldn’t deal with not being loved and wanted, proved by his disappearance. Heathcliff was treated poorly by Catherine, but this didn’t make him a more empathetic man. Instead of learning that what Catherine did to him was wrong, he then treated his wife, Isabella, poorly. Isabella shares why Heathcliff was an awful lover, “‘I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me’,” (Bronte 127). Catherine’s rejection failed to make Heathcliff unlike her, he did to Isabella what Catherine did to him. Heathcliff lacks any sympathy for Isabella, even though Catherine’s abuse should have made him sympathetic to poor treatment in romantic relationships. Despite being rejected by Catherine, Heathcliff didn’t learn how to be a good husband because of his narcissistic