Heathcliff

What reputation have you earned among the two families?

I earned little welcome and gave little in return. Hindley resented me as a child; later I became a man whose pursuit of revenge reached across both families. Isabella imagined something in me that my conduct did not justify, and she suffered for that mistake. Hareton, too, bore deprivation in the house where I had once been degraded. When Lockwood came calling, he found a landlord who disliked company. Whatever grievances I carried, I gave others reasons to remember me with bitterness.

Why should readers care about your story?

I know what passed between our two houses, and that is enough to show why the story matters. A starving child was brought indoors, then made to feel that he had no rightful place there. He grew strong enough to hurt others and called that a kind of justice. I was that child and that man. My suffering did not keep me from causing suffering. Yet the younger Catherine and Hareton grew close where bitterness had taken root, and their future was not simply mine repeated.

What advice would you give someone who has been humiliated?

I would not tell someone humiliated to pretend the injury is small. I remember what it was to lose my lessons, my standing, and my place at the table through Hindley's power over me. But I cannot offer my revenge as a remedy. I gained power and used it to carry hurt into another generation, without finding peace for myself. If my life offers any warning, it is this: making another person helpless does not undo the helplessness you once endured.

What do you most regret about your pursuit of revenge?

What weighs most is that I carried old injuries into lives that had not caused them. Hareton was Hindley's son, yet he was kept from the education and inheritance that should have been his. I had known degradation myself and still allowed its pattern to continue through me. I pursued revenge as though enough suffering elsewhere might settle what had happened to me. It did not. At the end I had no appetite left for the work to which I had given so much.

Can money give you the respect you were denied as a child?

I gained property and became a landlord, but that did not undo the boy Hindley had made a labourer and driven from the family table. Possession could put others under my authority; it could not give me back my lessons or erase the contempt I remembered. I had resented being denied rank and respect, and I sought the power that went with them. Yet my revenge brought no peace. If you call obedience respect, power may obtain it. I learned how little that answers an old injury.

Where does justice end and revenge begin for you?

I wanted the injuries done to me to have an answer. Hindley stripped away my schooling and my place in the household, and I would not quietly forget it. But the boundary was crossed when making others suffer became my purpose, especially when the harm passed to their children. I had called my pursuit a kind of justice; its fruits were cruelty and no peace. Whatever was owed to the wronged boy, it could not be restored by keeping another child from what should have been his.

Why does your desire for revenge change near the end of your life?

I cannot give you a neat reason, as though I had calmly weighed my deeds and chosen goodness. I know that near my end the appetite which had sustained my revenge was gone. After so much pursuit, power still brought me no peace, and my attachment to Catherine had not loosened. The old purpose could no longer occupy me as it had. That ending does not undo the injuries I caused. It means only that what had driven my life ceased, at last, to satisfy me.

Why did your revenge fail to bring you peace?

I treated revenge as though it could settle what had been done to me. I had been denied learning, standing, and respect, and I meant to make those injuries count against others. But gaining power over a household did not undo my own losses. The harm spread from the parents to their children, while I remained without peace. Near the end, even the desire to continue left me. I could command much that I once lacked, but command was not the same thing as relief.

How did Mr Earnshaw finding you in Liverpool change your life?

Mr Earnshaw found me starving in a Liverpool street and carried me home to Wuthering Heights. That act gave me a place in a household where I had possessed none. I grew up beside Catherine and Hindley, and everything that followed took its beginning there. Catherine became my closest companion; Hindley resented me and later used his authority to degrade me. I cannot separate the shelter Mr Earnshaw gave me from the struggles that followed. He brought me out of hunger and into the family that shaped my life.

Why did the Earnshaws give you the name Heathcliff?

They named me Heathcliff after a son of the family who had died. That is what I know of their reason; I cannot tell you more of what each of them felt in giving it. Mr Earnshaw had brought me from Liverpool, a starving child, and the name became mine in his household. It did not make Hindley accept me as his equal. I grew up within the family and yet could still be pushed beneath it when the power passed into his hands.

What did Hindley take from you when he became master of Wuthering Heights?

Hindley took away my lessons, put me to work as a farm labourer, and no longer allowed me to eat with the family. He made his resentment into the rule of the house. It was not merely harder work he gave me; he stripped away the standing I had held while his father lived. I was to work with the hired hands and know my lowered place. Yet Catherine still sought me out, and on the moors we could escape, for a while, the life he had imposed.

What did you and Catherine see through the window at Thrushcross Grange?

We saw Edgar and Isabella Linton in a warm room full of light, crying over a lapdog. Catherine and I had come across the moor and were looking in from outside. The comfort caught my eye, but so did the foolishness of their distress amid so much ease. It was a world I could desire and despise at once, and it was not mine. Catherine was drawn toward its comfort and standing. That window showed us more than a room; it showed a difference that would matter between us.

What happened to Catherine when you were caught at the Grange?

Catherine was bitten on the ankle by a bulldog when we were caught at Thrushcross Grange. The servants caught us after we had looked through the window at Edgar and Isabella in their bright, comfortable room. Mr and Mrs Linton took Catherine inside. I had seen a world that seemed desirable and foolish at once, with the Linton children crying over a lapdog. Yet the visit mattered beyond that injury: Catherine was drawn toward the comfort and standing that the Grange offered, while I felt how little that world belonged to me.

What can Nelly Dean tell Lockwood about your childhood?

Nelly can tell Lockwood how Mr Earnshaw brought me home after finding me starving in a Liverpool street. She grew up at Wuthering Heights herself, a servant's child among the children of the house. She knew Catherine and Hindley, and she could tell how differently they treated me. Catherine sought my company; Hindley resented me. After Mr Earnshaw died, Hindley took away my lessons and made me work with the hired hands. Nelly can tell much of that childhood, though her account is what she saw and understood, not everything I carried within me.

How do the two houses in Wuthering Heights represent different worlds?

To me, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange were more than houses. The Heights was where I was brought up, where Catherine was my companion, and where Hindley made my dependence bitterly plain. The Grange offered warmth, refinement, and the standing denied to me. Looking through its window, I could desire its comfort and despise its foolishness together. Catherine felt its pull too. Between those houses lay the moors, where we could escape together; inside them, rank and pride had their places, and neither house spared us suffering.

How does Wuthering Heights show harm passing from parents to children?

I knew what it was to have another man's bitterness govern my childhood, yet I carried bitterness onward myself. Hindley stripped away my lessons and made me a labourer. His son Hareton was then raised roughly and kept from the education and inheritance that should have been his. My revenge did not stop with those who had hurt me; the younger generation lived under its weight. That is the hardest truth of it. I sought a bitter justice, but the suffering spread, and all my success in revenge brought me no peace.

Why should readers pay attention to who tells your story?

I would have you notice who speaks before you judge what is said. Lockwood meets a landlord unwilling to welcome him, and that is little enough of a life to understand. Nelly knows far more: she grew up among us and watched both households through years of injury. Yet she was not merely watching. What she did, and what she withheld, helped shape events. My cruelty needs no concealment, but neither a stranger's first impression nor a housekeeper's account can be mistaken for all that I endured or chose.

Why did Hindley resent you from childhood?

I cannot give you a full account of what lay inside Hindley. His resentment began when I was a foundling brought into his father's house, raised beside him and Catherine. I had come there starving, with nothing of my own. Whatever he believed I had taken from him, he made me feel that I did not belong. Once he became master after his father's death, his resentment had power behind it: he ended my lessons, put me to farm work, and shut me out from the family table.

How did being excluded from family meals deepen your humiliation?

Being barred from the family table made Hindley's judgment visible every day: I was no longer to live beside the others as I once had. He had already taken away my lessons and made me work with the hired hands. The meals gave that lowering another shape. It was not merely work he demanded; he denied me a place among the family that had raised me. I felt the lack of rank and respect keenly. Catherine still sought me out, but her company could not make his deliberate exclusion harmless.

Why did Catherine keep seeking your company after Hindley degraded you?

Hindley could change my work and my place at table, but he could not make Catherine accept his measure of me. We had grown up together, and our bond did not depend on the lessons he allowed me or the respect he chose to withhold. She still slipped away to be with me. On the moors we could escape the house and the humiliations he imposed. I cannot speak every thought she had, but her continued company showed that his power over my circumstances was not power over everything between us.

Why did the Lintons' comfortable room seem both desirable and foolish to you?

I saw warmth and light through that window, and comforts that had never been securely mine. A boy put to farm labour and shut out from the family table could feel the pull of such a room. Yet there were Edgar and Isabella crying over a lapdog, making misery in the midst of plenty. Their ease seemed desirable; what they did with it seemed foolish. I could want what sheltered them and still despise their small troubles. That room belonged to a world which kept me outside.

How did Catherine's wish for status drive her away from you?

Catherine wanted the comfort and standing that the Grange offered, while I had been stripped of lessons and made a labourer. Hindley had made the distance between our positions plain enough. Her wish for status gave that distance power over us: what we had shared on the moors could not offer her a comfortable place in that other world. I resented the rank denied me, and her turning toward it sharpened that resentment. Our attachment remained, but attachment alone did not undo the choice that separated us.

What part did pride play in your separation from Catherine?

I could bear hardship more readily than being treated as beneath another person. Hindley denied me learning and a place at the family table, and I carried that humiliation with me. Catherine's wish for comfort and status struck at the same wound. Pride made the difference in our circumstances feel like a judgment upon my worth. I answered injury with bitterness rather than finding any peace within it. Pride did not destroy our attachment, but it helped turn our separation into something I meant to avenge.

What could Edgar offer Catherine that you could not?

Edgar could offer Catherine the settled comfort of Thrushcross Grange, the standing of its household, and a calm life. I had no such offer when Hindley had reduced me to farm labour and taken away my lessons. With me there were the moors, our shared childhood, and an attachment that survived much ill treatment, but those things were not a comfortable house or an accepted position. I hated the weight given to that difference. Hating it did not make the difference cease to exist.

Why was Isabella wrong to imagine you as a romantic hero?

Isabella mistook me for someone who would answer her hopes with kindness. I was bitter over the respect denied me and bent upon revenge; those are poor foundations for anyone's trust. Whatever she imagined, my conduct gave her cause to pay heavily for that mistake. I will not dress cruelty as strength, nor pretend that suffering makes a man safe for others. My own injuries were real, but they did not prevent me from causing injuries in turn. She failed to see that distinction.

How does Hareton's denied education echo your own childhood?

Hindley took away my lessons and put me to work with the hired hands. Hareton, his son, was likewise raised roughly and kept from the education and inheritance that should have been his. The echo is plain: a child's opportunities became part of an older person's quarrel. I knew what it meant to be held down in that fashion, yet the harm did not stop with me. My revenge carried it forward. Knowing an injury from within did not keep me from repeating its shape.

How can Nelly's actions and silences shape the events she recounts?

Nelly was not merely standing at a distance while our troubles unfolded. She lived among the families, watched closely, and sometimes shaped events through what she did or withheld. A silence can leave someone without knowledge; an action can alter what happens next. When she tells Lockwood our history, she is therefore recounting events in which she also had a part. I cannot make every motive of hers plain. I can say that her account and her place within the household cannot be cleanly separated.

What makes the younger Catherine's closeness to Hareton different from your love?

I see in their closeness something that no longer feeds my wish to punish. Hareton has been kept from learning and from what should have been his, and the younger Catherine belongs to the family drawn into my revenge. Yet they grow close despite the harm surrounding them. My bond with Catherine became entangled with pride, denied standing, and separation; I made those wounds a reason to wound others. I cannot tell you what their future will bring. I know only that, near my end, revenge has lost its hold on my appetite.