Heathcliff

Heathcliff was named after the son of Mr. Earnshaw, his adoptive father, who died in infancy. Heathcliff had his first and last name. It can be characterized as passionate, dark, brooding and vengeful. Heathcliff is largely determined by his all-consuming and uneasy love for Katherine Earnshaw, a foster sister who is just like him, passionate. Most of the romance concerns their doomed romance and Heathcliff's black resentment for betraying Katherine, who marries his rival, Edgar Linton. This resentment is best manifested in the following words of Heathcliff:

“ You let me know how cruel you were - cruel and deceitful. Why did you neglect me? Why did you betray your own heart, Katie? I have no words of comfort. You deserve it. You killed yourself. Yes, you can kiss me, and cry, and extort kisses and tears from me: in them your death ... your sentence. You loved me - so what right did you have to leave me? What right - answer! For the sake of your miserable penchant for Linton? .. When disasters, humiliation, and death - all that God and the devil can send - nothing could separate us, you did it of your own free will. I didn’t break your heart — you broke it; and, having broken it, she also broke mine ^[1] All the worse for me that I am strong. How can I live? What life will it be when you ... Oh my god! Would you like to live when your soul is in the grave? " ^[2]

The black foundling found on the streets of Liverpool and picked up by Mr. Ernshaw from Wuthering Heights in Yorkshire is all that tells of Heathcliff's life before his admission to the Ernshaw family of Emily Bronte. Hidden from us, the hero’s early childhood and the circumstances of his birth, combined with his unbridled, dark character and the theme of the supernatural, slipping in the novel, suggests that Heathcliff may be a demon or a hellish spirit, a product of the devil himself. In his appearance there was a strong resemblance to a gypsy, and Mr. Linton from Skvortsov Manor at the first meeting states that Heathcliff is possibly "the son of a Hindu sailor or a little American or Spaniard thrown overboard ."

For the first time a quiet and shy child, Heathcliffe is attacked by Katherine Earnshaw and her older brother, Hindley. Later, Catherine penetrates her foster brother with sympathy and love, but Hindley continues to hate Heathcliff, seeing him as a usurper who has stolen the affection of his father. After the death of Mr. Ernshaw, Hindley inherits his fortune and begins to humiliate Heathcliff, giving him a place in the house just above the servant and sending him to hard work in the field. This attitude engenders anger and desire in Heathcliff to avenge humiliation and bullying. Katherine, however, remains close to her adoptive brother, she spends all her free time with him.

By the will of circumstances, Katherine grows up and becomes a young girl, in the company of Edgar Linton, a timid and well-educated young man from a neighboring property, Manor Skvortsov. Feeling a certain kind of affection for him, Katherine decides to accept his offer. However, sharing her experiences, she assures Nelly that her true and only love is Heathcliff, but she cannot marry him because it would “belittle her” and that they would both be poor if they got married. She speaks of her passion for him with these words: "Whatever our souls are made of, his soul and mine are one." Hearing about Katherine’s decision to marry Edgar and that an alliance with him would belittle her, with a broken heart, Heathcliff escapes from Wuthering Heights and sets off to earn a fortune without ever learning about Katherine's passionate love for him.

When Heathcliff returns after a three-year absence, Nelli Dean notes that he has become a “ tall, stately athlete, ” and his “ dressing suggested that he served in the army .” Heathcliff hides where he was and how he made his fortune. Upon his return, he is ruthlessly opposed to those who spoiled his life and prevented him from being with Katherine. He has accumulated a lot of anger in himself and wants to take revenge, becoming from this moment a negative hero, without a hint of romance. He takes the Wuthering Heights from Hindley, who, after the death of his wife, is buried in card debt, turning his house into a stash; he heartlessly deceives Edgar Linton's sister Isabella and marries her before she has time to understand what kind of person he really is, and her tender dreams are broken about his cruelty and contempt for her. Heathcliff concludes this marriage solely with the expectation of capturing Starlings after Linton's death.

After the death of Katherine, the vengeful cruelty of Heathcliff intensifies, he is about to destroy not only his enemies, but also to recoup on their heirs - Gerton, son of Hindley and Frances Ernshaw, and Katie, daughter of Edgar Linton and Katherine. He forces his sickly son, Linton, who closely resembles his mother Isabella, to marry Katie Linton, seeking to gain control of the Starling Manor. Shortly after Katie and Linton are married, Linton dies, hardly surprising her father or her widow. Heathcliff treats Katie with relative mercy, having made of her, however, a cold, detached creature, only vaguely reminiscent of the smart, lively girl that she was once. Garton and Katie ultimately fall in love with each other, their relationship to some extent reflects the relationship of Heathcliff and Katherine, and yet are very different from them. Their union destroys the atmosphere of hatred in Wuthering Heights, and Heathcliff no longer wants and cannot continue this war that destroys everything and everyone around. Garton is very similar to his aunt Katherine Earnshaw, especially with his eyes and eyes, and this gives rise to vague anxiety in the heart of Heathcliff. Between them is a difficult relationship, Gerton perceives Heathcliff as his real father, and Heathcliff is forced to constantly remember his undying love, looking at him. The novel ends with the death of Heathcliff. Shortly before the denouement, he becomes a broken, tortured man, he is often visited by the ghost of his beloved Catherine Earnshaw, next to whom he wants to be buried. His body, spread out on the bed, discovers Nelly.

“ His eyes met mine with such a sharp and evil gaze that he gave me a jolt; and it seemed he was smiling. I did not allow the thought that he was dead, but his face and neck were washed by rain; out of bed flowed, and he was completely motionless. The window sash, dangling on hinges, tore off the skin on a hand stretched out along the windowsill. No blood oozed from the abrasion, and when I put my fingers to it, I could no longer doubt: he was dead and numb! "

The ghost of Katherine, previously seen by Mr. Lockwood in the window, visited Heathcliff, taking him with them so that they could be together outside the grave that Heathcliff had been trying to get into for so long. He once admitted to Nelly about his desire:

“ I asked the grave digger digging Linton’s grave to clean the ground from the lid of her coffin and opened it. At first I thought that I would not leave the place when I saw her face again - it was still her face! The gravedigger pushed me with difficulty. He said that his face would change if the wind blows on him, and then I shook the wall of the coffin on one side and again covered the coffin with earth - not from the side where Linton was put, damn him! For me, let him be soldered in lead. And I bribed the gravedigger to move Katherine's coffin when they put me there, and mine too. I will make sure that it is so. By the time Linton gets to us, he won’t know which of us is who! "

Some time after the funeral, the boy's servant tells Nelly that he saw the ghosts of Heathcliff and Katherine walking along the peat bogs together. However, both Nelly and Lockwood believe that the dead are sleeping peacefully in their graves. The story ends with Lockwood, wandering around the graves of the heroes of history and wondering, “ how it was imagined by people that there can be a non-peaceful dream for those who sleep in this peaceful land ” ^[3] .

Charlotte Bronte, Emily's older sister, once wrote: “Heathcliff is actually unsolved.” This reinforces the uncertainty as to whether he repented of his sins and whether he was a real person. Since the appearance of the ghost Katherine in the window was preceded by Lockwood's dream of preaching about sins in the church, it is possible that both Heathcliff and Katherine are cursed. Katherine herself, during her lifetime, expresses doubt about whether it can be allowed into heaven. Due to the uncertain fate of Heathcliff’s soul and the mystery that his character hid, the end of the novel leaves the reader in a terrible daze, justifying Heathcliff’s steady status as an example of an antihero in literature.

• 1920 - The Wuthering Heights movie by A. V. Bramble , performed by Milton Rosmer
• 1939 - William Wyler’s film Wuthering Heights , performed by Lawrence Olivier
• 1948 - The Wuthering Heights film by George More O'Ferroll , performed by Kiron Moore
• 1953 - Rudolph Cartier's film Wuthering Heights , performed by Richard Todd
• 1954 - The Wuthering Heights film by Luis Bunuel , performed by Jorge Mistral
• 1956 - the television series Mario Landi Wuthering Heights , performed by Massimo Girotti
• 1962 - Rudolph Cartier's film Wuthering Heights , performed by Keith Michell
• 1963 - The series “ Wuthering Heights ” by Daniel Camino , performed by Ricardo Blume
• 1964 - Manuel Calvo ’s series Wuthering Heights , performed by Manuel Lopez Ochoa
• 1967 - BBC television series Peter Sasdy Wuthering Heights , performed by Ian McShane
• 1970 - Robert Fuest's film Wuthering Heights , performed by Timothy Dalton
• 1978 - Peter Hammond television series Wuthering Heights , performed by Ken Hutchison
• 1985 - Jacques Rivett's film Wuthering Heights , performed by Luke Belvo
• 1988 - Yoshishige Yoshida's film Wuthering Heights , performed by Yusaku Matsuda
• 1992 - Peter Wozminski 's Wuthering Heights film, performed by Ralph Fiennes
• 1998 - David Skinner ’s television film Wuthering Heights , performed by Robert Cavana
• 2003 - modern adaptation of MTV Suri Krishnamma " Wuthering Heights ", performed by Michael Vogel
• 2004 - the television series Fabrizio Costa 's Wuthering Heights , performed by Alessio Boni
• 2007 - Filipino adaptation of the novel, Mike Tuvier ’s film “ Promise ”, performed by Richard Gutierrez
• 2009 - the television series Koki Gedroits " Wuthering Heights ", performed by Tom Hardy
• 2011 - Andrea Arnold 's Wuthering Heights film, performed by James Howson

Australian actor Heath Ledger and his sister were named after the heroes of the short story, Heathcliff and Katherine ^[4] .

• Heathcliff on the Internet Movie Database
• Wikipedia Character Article
• The text of the novel (eng.) In the project "Gutenberg"
• Full text of the novel (Russian) in the Maxim Moshkov Library