Heathcliffe- A sad fellow

Wuthering Heights is filled with muti-leveled characters including the mastermind Heathcliff. The scholarly article by H.W Gallagher compares Heathcliff to Mary Shelly’s character Victor Frankenstein. The comparison of Heathcliff to Frankenstein creates a clearer understanding of the complex character created by Emily Brönte. Understanding Heathcliff requires one to comprehend his shocking actions. Two of the most beastly acts by Heathcliff are his hatred of Catherine and his malicious attacks he takes out on Hareton. Closer looks at these two acts help define the man that Heathcliff is; a man who starves himself to death. Is his act of self starvation an act of pity or to punish himself for the wrong he had done during his life?

Heathcliff’s self starvation is shocking to one but we need to look at why a man would take his own life in a painful way. The death of Catherine pushed Heathcliff to an edge where few humans go, because all he wanted was to take revenge on the people that turned him into the “monster” of being “lower” class. Heathcliff finally took his own life because his “evil minded” plans for taking out his thoughtless revenge on Catherine and Hareton made him realize, his crazed state of “evil,” will never bring back Catherine no matter how much he tries to destroy the people who destroyed him.

The realization of how much his daughter in-law resembles Catherine Heathcliff hits a turning point when Heathcliff understands the only equation which allows him to see the deceased Catherine is to become deceased himself. Heathcliff’s choice on death ironically is similar to his soul mate’s route to the afterlife, the act of starvation. Heathcliff is the polar opposite to Victor Frankenstein because Frankenstein creates life, though the “new” life is in him, while Heathcliff tears down the worlds of people who remind him of his failure to marry Catherine. Heathcliff is ruthless in his injustice, because he takes his revenge out on his own daughter in-law almost to the point of striking her.

There is one similarity between Heathcliff and Victor; they are both “monsters.” Victor’s monster was created him from his endless greed to be in the “pantheon” of the greats, while Heathcliff’s monstrous traits where created by the class stratification in England.