Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is motivated by lack of proper parenting for most of its characters. The author is preoccupied with that problem because her
mother died when she was scarcely three years old. Mothers often die in the novel, as Mrs. Earnshaw or the older Catherine, or ineffective, as Frances and Isabella Linton. Fathers too often fail to fulfill their task of bringing up the new generation. In this situation the children in the novel need a foster mother or father to survive. Usually Nelly Dean acts as the one (in case of Hareton and the younger Catherine). But the life of members of Earnshaws and Lintons is complicated by the intrusion of the stranger Heathcliff. He was brought to Earnshaw family by Mr.Earnshaw and his history is unknown. But we do know that he was separated from his parents for he was found on his own in the streets of Liverpool. Being an orphan he suffers from abuse in Earnshaw’s house mainly from Hindley. Mr. Earnshaw tried to protect him but in vain. I suggest that his way of dealing with being an orphan is to take vengeance on other people. He separates the
young from those who might take care of them: Hindley from Mr. Earnshaw, Isabella from Edgar and Catherine, Linton from Edgar and the young Catherine and Nelly and Hareton is simply kept as a brute. In that sense the story that Catherine Earnsaw tells Nelly about Heathcliff who set a trap over the nest of lapwings that prevented the parents to get into the nest and as a result the young generation died is very allegorical. Heathcliff takes dependent creatures, do not satisfy their
needs and keeps them underdeveloped. As the consequence he is able to torture them and use them for his needs. Hindley, Linton and Isabella degrade as a result of such a treatment. Hareton doesn’t because he was taught that to be a brute as he was is the right condition and therefore he has no inner conflict with that. The only person that Heathcliff wished to satisfy is Catherine. Wion claims that he was kind of a mother for her. But before he ran away and Catherine married Edgar he was both uneducated and socially unacceptable and therefore couldn’t fulfill that task successfully. Three years later when he returned Catherine was already married and her husband opposed their relations. Being unable to choose between Heathcliff and Edgar Catherine becomes ill and die. Although the younger Catherine has no mother he does receive proper care from Nelly Dean and her father Edgar Linton. She becomes a fully developed adult and when she moves into Heathcliff’s house she is independent and able to protect herself. She needs nothing from Heathcliff and the latter who insists to remain within the boundaries of the law can do nothing to torture her.
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