Saturday, March 3, 2007

Wuthering Heights Question #1

Do you sympathize with Heathcliff or do you consider him entirely a villain?

3 comments:

Emily A said...

Despite any of his evil actions, I tend to sympathize with Heathcliff. Even in my life I always try to look at both sides of the story. And although I don't believe revenge is justifiable or right, I do pity Heathcliff because of his rough start to life. Of course there's a better way to get things done, but I believe that the abuse he encountered as a child has greatly affected him and is responsible for the way he acts in his more adult life.

tdorwart said...

What about Hindley -- do you sympathize with him? What adjectives would you use to describe the elder Catherine?

Anonymous said...

On the contrary to Emily's response, I do not sympathize with Heathcliff. He may have a had a pretty crummy childhood, but that does not give him the right to treat pretty much everyone cruelly. He even treated his wife Isabella like dirt, the one person whom you might believe he would treat with respect. Furthermore, I might have been able to sympathize with Heathcliff if he had only acted about his revenge upon Hindley, (because to a certain extent he deserved it) but instead Heathcliff was pretty much mean to everyone, even his own son. So no, I do not sympathize with him because he could have taken his bad experiences as a child, and used them as motivation to have a positive life. But off course, he didn't.