“He who seeks revenge should dig two graves.” There were only two things that Heathcliff wanted from Catherine Earnshaw, absolute revenge and absolute love. The personalities of the two were at odd from their beginning yet like moths to a light they were constantly drawn to one another. Heathcliff’s thoughts were never far form Catherine; constantly thinking what he could do to spite her and yet what he could do to be with her. These thoughts turned into an all-consuming obsession that manifested to involve everyone in Wuthering Heights. This consumption would lead Heathcliff to do irrational, wild, disconnected acts of revenge and love. All in the name of Catherine Earnshaw.
Consumption does not arise out of nothing though. When Heathcliff was brought to Wuthering Heights, he had no companions except for Catherine or Cathy as the family called her. The two never wanted to be apart and this was when there love began to grow. For Heathcliff, Cathy was the only one of the Earnshaws that would even look him in his dark gypsy eyes. In his isolation, Cathy was the only one that would not only speak to him but she always wanted to be with him, playing or just sitting. For Heathcliff, this was his only light in life and it is easy to see why he was easily attached. It was not only love for Cathy Heathcliff had, but a need. He needed her when he was being persecuted from Hindley and the whole family. She licked his wounds and gave him courage to stay strong against attacks. In this type of relationship, Heathcliff found a dependency in Cathy and together they grew into a codependent one.
Though unhealthy, the relationship was flourishing for Heathcliff and Cathy; until the fateful day with of the dog bite. After being rushed into the Linton home, Heathcliff stood in the rain watching her in the house. She had left him. Heathcliff had always been in outsider and in that moment, he actually was from the one person that loved him. The was a turning point for Heathcliff and it was only worsened by her insulting him in the same way he had been by so many others. “Why, how very black and cross you look! and how - how funny and grim,” is the very first thing she says to him upon her return (Bronte 50). By teasing him for his dirty appearance, like everyone else at Wuthering Heights has done, she is sealing her fate as an enemy. At this point, Cathy had broken everything there was between her and Heathcliff. Heathcliff’s attitude of trust and love turned to frustration. Frustration because he had loved Cathy so and she had betrayed him; and with this frustration came anger. Healthcliff began to hate Cathy, hate her for what she had done to him and whom she had turned into. Thus revenge came in to Heathcliff’s life and filled the void.
While Heathcliff had been angry and had darkness in him before, this event certainly brought it out. Heathcliff started lashing out at everyone more than his usual nitpicking and instigator ways. From refusing to acknowledge or touch Cathy, throwing hot applesauce at Edgar or lashing out at Mrs. Dean, Heathcliff began to manifest his anger with Cathy into the rest of the family in ways he never had before. There were no more childish games of telling on telling to Mr. Earnshaw or showing bruises to get what he wanted. “Heathcliff mingles his threats of violence with a number of plausible arguments propounded in order to prove,” what he felt he was wronged for (Tytler 237). As it was a change for Heathcliff, so came a change in everyone else. Hindley had become the strict brash head of the household he had always wanted to be and with that power he could treat Cathy and especially Heathcliff any way he wanted. Cathy had gone onto a proper lady and with that came the expectations of one. Her childish wild and bratty ways were now the pretentious attitude and judgments of one trying to fit in. Yet Cathy was harboring secrets that would explode to be another great turning point for the lives of herself and Heathcliff.
“It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him,” (Bronte 86). With Heathcliff eavesdropping behind a door, Cathy told the secret that she had been holding; that she did in fact love Heathcliff. This was the moment that he had been waiting and hoping for. It could have been the end of their anger and revenge for each other and the taking back up of their romance. Yet Cathy could not marry Heathcliff because of her new found status. Nothing would be worse for Heathcliff. In an irrational emotional state, Heathcliff left. Emotions of rage and hurt took over and he left in the storming night weather. Heathcliff’s actions did not just affect him though; they sent Cathy into a downward spiral of rage. Rage in herself that was taken out on her new husband Edgar and Nelly. The two then began a new game of revenge, using jealousy as their weapon. The two used siblings Edgar and Isabella to hurt the other, making them think they were deeply in love and cared not for the other anymore. Anyone could see this though and Heathcliff finally goes on to say “You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement, only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style,” (Bronte 186). As they carried on this odd tryst, they ruined the lives of their spouses.
“Heathcliff is, in any case, remarkable in other contexts for his quickness, his articulation, and his sharp-wittedness, as he is for his preoccupation with reasons, causes, and proofs, especially legal ones, in the planning and shaping of his life as well as the lives of those in his care,” (Tytler 237).
Heathcliff would go on to destroy Isabella with hateful words, evil actions and admitting that he only married her to spite her brother, Edgar. His consumption with Cathy made him blind to the slow death he was causing his wife and his actions towards her grew more and more irrational. As Graeme Tytler says in the article, “The Parameters of Reason in
Eventually, their consumption would face its hardest test; the death of Cathy. While on her deathbed they continued to bicker and Cathy said she would come to haunt him forever, it was here that their love was brought back. After years of carrying on their affair of hatred and devotion, they found their way back to each other. While this seems like the perfect fairy tale ending, it is really just another twist in their irrationality. Heathcliff tried to fight with Cathy even on her death bed, daring her to come haunt her as she said she would. It is not till she actually dies that he comes to her coffin to see her one last time; to look at her the way he always wanted to, with love and devotion. His irrationality does not end with her death though. Upon nearing his own death, he builds himself and Cathy a joint coffin so that they can spend eternity together. He also asks Cathy’s grave to be furthered from Edgar’s.
Heathcliff’s consumption of love lead him to do irrational acts of vengeance and hate to his one true love, Cathy, as well as all the people that came into his life at Wuthering Heights. It was this obsessive consumption that lead to these acts and the end of everyone at
Works Cited
Phillips, James. "The Two Faces of Love in
(2007): 96-105. Print.
Tytler, Graeme. "Nelly, I am Heathcliff!": The Problem of "Identification" in
Tytler, Graeme. "The Parameters of Reason in
(2005): 231-42. Print.
The topic of co-dependency, especially related to Catherine and Heathcliff, is no doubt an important one. And if you are defining such co-dependency through the concept of consumption… well, this is what makes this pair infamous. So are you trying to determine the tipping point for this pair? The point when love must also reveal hate, ally gives way to enemy? If so, great. But I am left slightly confused as to what exactly you want to argue for in this post. What about consumption should I be focused on? It seems as if you determine the tipping (i.e. consumptive?) point with the dog bit incident, but this occurs near the midpoint of your post. Once this is determined, what becomes the focus? I think the problem lies not with your reflections on/insights into the novel, but in the simple fact that you didn’t clearly articulate the stakes of your argument. What I liked most about this post was a kind of character analysis that you performed on Heathcliff. Moreover, it seemed as if Cathy’s character was really only knowable as a result of Heathcliff—as if Cathy exists only in consequence to this ‘foreign’ double. “For Heathcliff, he did not dig two graves, but built one for two.” Ending the post w/ this statement definitely provoked me to wonder more about the relationship b/w consumption and doubling.
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