Literary Criticism

Even in today’s day and age, the novel Wuthering Heights is often considered a great romance. The relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw/Linton is continually raised up as the pinnacle of passion and exalted as a beautiful example of the pains of love. Despite this more popular contemporary view, it is important to remember what monsters lie beneath this narrative and the victims thereof. It comes as no surprise that Victorian society often shunned the idea of domestic violence, acknowledging it only in passing or alluding to it in ways that lessened its gravity. Emily Brontë’s mid-nineteenth century novel not only acknowledges the way in which Victorian households perpetuated cycles of domestic violence, but also highlights the very few ways in which victims of that abuse had to combat or protect themselves during the period.

It is important firstly to define what domestic abuse is. In modern culture, the concept is nearly always tied to issues of female victimization. The term “domestic abuse,” however, truly refers to any sort of violent act, both verbal and physical, that occurs within the confines of the home.

The cycle of abuse in Wuthering Heights begins early. Brought to the Heights as a child by the patriarch, Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff is immediately ostracized by the other children, either due to his gypsy or Moorish heritage or the simple fact that he is coming into an established social system as an outsider. He is promptly taught to adopt the same cruelty exerted by the other children. As a result of being cast aside as “the other,” Heathcliff develops only two close, nurturing relationships: those of Catherine and Mr. Earnshaw. Even here, despite its later evolution, the early days of interaction between Heathcliff and Catherine are bullying and violent, “Cathy, when she learned the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing” (Brontë 2005, 37). While these relationships eventually show him a certain level of kindness and consideration, the relationships with the servant, Joseph; Catherine’s brother, Hindley; and later on Hindley’s wife Frances, all serve to demean and humiliate him, “So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at Mrs. Earnshaw’s death, which happened in less than two years after, the young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent’s affections and his privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries” (Brontë 2005, 58).

There are several instances in Heathcliff’s early childhood where he is forced to endure a beating at the hands of Hindley, often refusing to fight back or acknowledge the abuse, “he would stand Hindley’s blows without winking or shedding a tear” (Brontë 2005, 38). He is still able to find comfort in Catherine at this point and therefore we see little of the cruelty that infests his personality later on. Once Catherine becomes sick and is forced to stay with the Lintons at Thrushcross Grange, however, she changes in a way that no longer allows for Heathcliff to feel safe or comfortable with her. She begins to see herself as above him socially, a fine young lady, no longer acknowledging their comradery or feelings of adolescent love. In the article, “The Depiction of Trauma and its Effect on Character Development in the Brontë Fiction” by Patrick Morris, the author states, “The importance of trust and companionship in dealing with any adversity is highlighted in these scenes. Heathcliff is totally dependent for his emotional security on Catherine — a circumstance with fateful consequences” (Morris 2013, 163). It is also during this period of Heathcliff’s life that Mr. Earnshaw dies, leaving him in the care of Hindley Earnshaw. Hindley, always jealous of Mr. Earnshaw’s preferential treatment towards Heathcliff, seizes the opportunity and forces him down to the rank of servant, cutting off his education and escalating his physical violence. It is at this point when we get a glimpse of the future that lies ahead of Heathcliff.

Upon leaving Wuthering Heights and his return many years later, Heathcliff is still regarded as an outcast among the families he interacts with. No amount of fine education or good grooming can remove the shade of Heathcliff’s past. Edgar Linton’s initial reaction to his return being: “What! the gipsy—the ploughboy?” (Brontë 2005, 94). This continued rejection hastens the revelation of cruelty that was first blossoming in Heathcliff after Mr. Earnshaw’s death and Catherine’s betrayal, and is now fully developed within his personality. The years of abuse that he suffered as a child and adolescent, going from the patriarch’s favorite to that of a lowly servant, have only served to make Heathcliff ruthless and cruel. Instead of learning to cope with his abuse and later turn it towards self-reflection and enlightenment, Heathcliff instead internalizes his past and funnels it into the form of revenge. His revenge is both focused on Edgar Linton, Hindley Earnshaw, and even Catherine Linton to a certain extent, but what is most unfortunate are the ways he uses Isabella Linton to exact it.

Upon an initial reading, it is obvious that Heathcliff only marries Isabella out of spite for Catherine and as an attempt to fuel jealousy within her. When this fails to work, however, Heathcliff turns to some of the most extreme domestic violence described in the novel. Once Heathcliff realizes that his ploy to win Catherine’s heart in this way will not work, he locks Isabella in his house and will not let her escape, blaming Catherine’s sickness on her brother and stating that Isabella “should be Edgar’s proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him” (Brontë 144). He is both physically and emotionally abusive to her, striking a profound fear in Isabella. Isabella even says at one point, “Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil?” and she later goes as far as to call him a “monster” (Brontë 2005, 115). The childhood abuse that Heathcliff experiences could be considered the reason that he is never able to develop the adult coping skills necessary to handle his unrequited (or at least ignored) feelings. His frustration with Catherine is therefore projected onto Isabella.

Some of the most terrifying violence that Isabella must endure occurs once she has entered Heathcliff’s home. Heathcliff believes that he will find Catherine waiting in her chamber after he has attempted to dig her body out of the grave. In Edgar Shannon’s article “Lockwood's Dreams and the Exegesis of Wuthering Heights,” he states that this moment in the novel is the peak of Heathcliff’s ruthlessness. Heathcliff is barred access to Catherine’s chamber and in his subsequent panic-ridden rage he kicks Hindley and insensibly wounds Isabella with a knife, cutting her deeply behind her ear. It is Heathcliff’s desperation to find acceptance and love within his life that leads him to these acts of violence. Heathcliff is not simply apathetic to his wife’s torment, he takes joy in it, “I have no pity! I have no pity! The worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething, and I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain” (Brontë 2005, 151).

As their marriage progresses the abuse continues to escalate. In her letter to Nelly Dean, Isabella discusses her wish that Heathcliff would kill her rather than her have to endure his torment any longer, “I pray that he may forget his diabolical prudence, and kill me! The single pleasure I can imagine is to die, or to see him dead!” (Brontë 2005, 150-151). It is at this point she flees back to Thrushcross Grange and then to London, descending to the level of a minor character within the book as Heathcliff continues his rage in her absence.

This traumatic and truly devastating portion of the book further reinforces Heathcliff’s cruelty to the reader. We can understand, to a certain extent, the anger and resentment that Heathcliff must have felt as a victim of child abuse, leaving moments in the text when he is almost a sympathetic character. It is another thing altogether when he begins to abuse Isabella. He not only perpetuates that cycle of abuse with her, but then after she dies, he is equally horrible to his own son, Linton, who’s death only six months after he comes under Heathcliff’s care can really only be blamed on the abuse he suffers at the hands of his father, “I do regret, however, that he so little deserves the trouble: if I wished any blessing in the world, it was to find him a worthy object of pride; and I'm bitterly disappointed with the whey-faced, whining wretch!'' (Brontë 2005, 265). He has no empathetic capabilities towards the people that should hold most esteem in his life. They are forever objects that tore him and Catherine apart and his lack of basic coping mechanisms never allows him to see them as anything more.

It is only when he is left with Hareton Earnshaw, Hindley’s son, as his ward that we can see a small amount of empathy from Heathcliff. Hareton is by then grown enough that he would present some physical match over Heathcliff, which may be one of the reasons that Heathcliff never physically attacks him in the same way that he did his own son. We can see instances where Heathcliff sees himself in the way that Hareton was raised and it is possibly for those reasons that his cruelty is scaled back some in comparison with that of the other characters, “Only when he can identify with the young Hareton does he develop some sense of feeling for another human being’s situation.” (Morris 2013, 165).

It is unfortunate that Linton Heathcliff is not the last victim of Heathcliff’s abuse. After Edgar and Catherine’s death, Heathcliff (now having control over both Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights) takes on the care of Catherine and Edgar’s daughter, Cathy. Heathcliff is cruel to her as well, clearly still identifying her as an extension of Catherine and still unable to let go of his obsession. She quickly learns that in order to survive at the Heights, she must adapt, and, in turn, becomes cold and vindictive, particularly towards Hindley’s son, Hareton. So not only has Heathcliff’s abuse driven off his wife, killed his son, and estranged Catherine and Edgar until their deaths, he has now soiled the innocent products of those relationships. It is only upon Heathcliff’s death that the cycle is finally broken. Without the tyrannical influence of their caretaker, Cathy and Hareton are able to start a new relationship, doing what Heathcliff never could by moving past their abuse.

It is important to note the denial of this abuse among the general public during Brontë’s time. Pike’s essay, “‘My Name Was Isabella Linton’; Coverture, Domestic Violence, and Mrs. Heathcliff's Narrative in Wuthering Heights,” thoroughly details the way in which critics of the time used language to discuss the events of Wuthering Heights, often refusing to describe the abuse as such, “the critics were in general accord as to what they deemed the coarse nature of the novel due to a wide range of reasons, from the novel’s unforgiving and indecorous dialogue to ‘the brutalizing influence of unchecked passion’ demonstrated by many of its characters” (Pike 2009, 347). By diminishing the significance of the domestic violence to “brutalizing influence,” “unchecked passion,” and its “coarse nature,” they refuse to acknowledge not only the abuse within the novel, but also the abuse of real-life women. As Pike goes on to explain, there was very little recourse for women during this period and therefore the notion of a book discussing these issues in such bold terms most likely contributed to the discomfort of its readers. It was not until the late nineteenth century that Isabella Heathcliff/Linton’s ordeal was even described as domestic abuse, "Nineteenth-century reviewers of Wuthering Heights would periodically make veiled comments about domestic violence, but it was usually of minor note, such as A. Mary F. Robinson’s 1883 comment about “dishonoured wives” in her biography of Emily Brontë. Not until the late-Victorian period, with John Stuart Mill’s writing and most notably the publication in 1878 of Frances Power Cobbe’s “Wife-Torture in England,” did this topic receive broader attention. When Brontë was writing, the topic of domestic violence was being addressed behind the closed doors of Parliament during debates over divorce and what constituted cruelty as a just rationale for divorce" (Pike 2009, 356-357).

It is important to acknowledge the significance of works such as Brontë’s Wuthering Heights in connection with domestic violence. Accepting the true nature of domestic and child abuse was clearly a task most Victorian’s chose to ignore, one in which even outright portrayals such as Brontë’s were greatly swept under the rug or discussed in hushed tones. This novel puts abuse towards women and children in the forefront of a great gothic romance, exposing its true nature and perhaps leading to the acknowledgment of domestic violence during the era.

Works Cited

Brontë Emily. 2005. Wuthering Heights. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics.

Morris, Patrick. 2013. “The Depiction of Trauma and Its Effect on Character Development in the Brontë Fiction.” Brontë Studies 38 (2): 157–68.

Pike, Judith E. 2009. “‘My Name Was Isabella Linton’; Coverture, Domestic Violence, and Mrs. Heathcliff's Narrative in Wuthering Heights.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 64 (3): 347– 83.

Shannon, Edgar F. 1959. “Lockwood's Dreams and the Exegesis of Wuthering Heights.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 14 (2): 95–109. doi:10.2307/3044162.