Essays - Attaining Peace by Overcoming Class Distinction

Originally written for a British Literature class, March 2004, words.

ATTAINING PEACE BY OVERCOMING CLASS DISTINCTION

At first sight, the social classification of the characters and their families at the beginning of Nelly Dean’s narrative in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights seems clear; the Lintons and the Earnshaws are both respectable families, though the Lintons appear to be the more cultivated of the two. Heathcliff, an outsider forced into this small world, falls short of both families in stature, and is seen by many as nothing more than a servant, someone who does not belong there, having no past and no family.

        Both by Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, the Lintons are connected to and even identified with material means. When, before his departure, Heathcliff sees Catherine dressing up for Edgar’s imminent visit:

‘Cathy, are you busy this afternoon?’ asked Heathcliff. ‘Are you going anywhere?’
‘No, it is raining,’ she answered.
‘Why have you that silk frock on, then?’ he said. ‘Nobody coming here, I hope?’[1]

He is aware of the consequences of her doing so and bids Catherine to have Nelly tell the visiting Linton children she is engaged so she can sit with him instead, which Catherine refuses. Heathcliff recognises the attractiveness of the Grange, but also realises how it will restrict freedom; his own as well as Catherine’s.

        The love Heathcliff and Catherine share is not based on outward appearances, material means, or sexual attraction as such. It is based on the sharing of a soul. They are absolutely essential to each other, even if the relationship cannot be described as their being fond of or pleasant to each other. Catherine trusts in the sense of this shared being when she reveals she has accepted Edgar Linton’s proposal of marriage. She trusts it so much she does not regard this marriage to Edgar as something that can come between Heathcliff and her; how can anything earthly destroy a bond as strong as theirs, which goes far beyond that?

        Catherine’s rejection of Heathcliff as a partner in marriage is mainly because she recognises how alike they are by confessing: “Nelly, I am Heathcliff! -he’s always, always in my mind-not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being-” (93). Nevertheless, Catherine also admits she is marrying Edgar at least in part because of his prospect inheritance and the social status a marriage to him would bring her: “And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.” (88), while at the same time she hopes to help Heathcliff rise above his current position with the money which will become available to her through her husband: “Nelly, I see now you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother's power” (93). Heathcliff’s lack of a social status is not the main reason for her to refuse him as much as it is a main incentive for her to accept Edgar’s proposal.

        When Catherine speaks to Nelly explaining why she cannot marry Heathcliff: “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am” (91), it is important to consider what exactly makes Heathcliff depart from their presence. Is it simply the humiliation of Catherine’s downright rejection of him because of his rank; is it his horror and incapability to hear she can prefer Edgar Linton to him? Or does he realise what she does not; that material wealth alone cannot bring her happiness? Catherine’s desire to inhabit both the world of the Lintons as well as that of the moors; the world of Heathcliff, the world of her youth, can only result in tragedy for a free soul such as hers. If anyone beside Catherine could realise that, it would be Heathcliff.

        His departure to gain a fortune is in order to provide Catherine with another choice, as he reveals later: “I’ve fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!” (110). It is a choice which would give her the opportunity to inhabit both worlds in such a way that she could be happy: with him. If a marriage to him would degrade her currently, Heathcliff’s obvious goal becomes to rise to a position that would not degrade her. But the three years he is gone prove too long. Not for the first time, Catherine and Heathcliff are separated because he is considered to be unworthy.

        Whatever Heathcliff accomplishes during those three years of absence, he comes back a changed man. No longer appearing as the wayward urchin of before, he is transformed into something of a gentleman:

He had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master seemed quite slender and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though stern for grace. (109)

If the riches he has gathered have not bought him a birthright in the sense of a parentage, respectable or otherwise, he has come as close as he could have. But he has long realised he has come too late.

‘-and yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don't deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!’
‘A little more than you have thought of me,’ he murmured. ‘I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since;’ (110)

        Catherine does believe he has become a gentleman “worthy of any one's regard” (112) upon his return, but never does she make any pretence as to contemplating him as a possible partner in marriage. It does not even seem to cross her mind; she is married to Edgar, and Heathcliff’s presence alone is enough for her. But despite Heathcliff’s improvements, Edgar continues to see him as an inferior, even if he cannot take them for the “ploughboy” (107) any longer.

        This is exactly what brings Heathcliff to continue onwards, instead of to simply give in to his earlier plan of killing Hindley and then committing suicide; justification. He has been characterised as so much beneath the other characters in station (by those characters themselves) that he cannot do anything else than prove them wrong, by whatever means and with whatever consequences. Their cruelty brings about his own. And because he has risen up to the same level as they, he has the same means as they do to accomplish his goals; money, an attractive appearance which might not be what it purports to be, patriarchal power (certainly after Hindley’s death), and the law.

        He uses legal conventions and his money to take his revenge on Hindley by ultimately depriving him of the ownership of Wuthering Heights, and having no small part in his demise and ultimate death. He secretly courts Isabella to spite Edgar and by marrying her drives a wedge between brother and sister. He defeats everyone at their own game, sometimes even ridicules the social ideals they hold so high. In the eyes of the likes of Edgar Linton and Hindley Earnshaw, he will never be what Lockwood thinks him to be when he first sets eyes on him: “a dark-skinned gipsy, in aspect, in dress, and manners, a gentleman, that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss, with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure-and rather morose-possibly” (4), but a large part of his revenge is that in the end he triumphs over them all.

        There is a revelation in Catherine’s warning to Isabella not to love Heathcliff; she warns her of his cruelty, which can be turned into an admittance of her own at the same time: “Pray, don't imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He's not a rough diamond-a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic; he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man” (117). Heathcliff himself appears to despise Isabella because she is at first attracted to his brutality, and knowing what he is still loves him. “I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished” (172). Heathcliff’s marriage to Isabella is nothing more than a scheme on his part to control her brother Edgar, which is accomplished by his fathering a male heir to Edgar’s possessions, and supported by Linton’s marriage to Cathy, a marriage which in all likelihood is never consummated. Hareton, Heathcliff’s heir after Linton’s death, has been brought up without any real knowledge of his true social stature, but with Cathy’s help slowly begins to grow into what he by right should be. She was once abhorred to discover he was her cousin, but has been humbled enough by past occurrences to see through his crudeness and discover his good nature. The two of them scale the social barrier that once stood between Heathcliff and Catherine, and by doing so appear to release Heathcliff from his urge for revenge, his quest to upset social classification, giving him the opportunity to finally unite with Catherine, be it beyond -and in- the grave.

        Wuthering Heights is a story about passion and revenge, about love, but more implicitly it is social class which lies intrinsically at the foundation of all these greater themes. It is about how characters wish to rise in the world in order to gain that which they desire; the respect and acceptance of their fellows, the freedom of choice, and the consequences of deep wrought class distinction.

[1] Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Everyman’s Library 1991: 77-78. All further quotations are taken from this edition.

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