Wuthering Heights ——Revenge
Well, before I begin my part, I would like to ask you a question that is if you hate a person a lot, what will you do? Keep silence? Talk about your feelings with the person immediately and try to solve the problem? Or hurt the person to expre your anger? Or deal with it in other ways? Who can give me you’re an answer? Now let’s come back to our novel.What did the hero, Heathcliff do when he had extreme hatred? He chose to revenge.Then in the following part, I’ll begin with the revenge in Wuthering Heights.Later on, I’d like to talk about some other related things about revenge.
First, let’s see the revenge in the novel.We know that Heathcliff lives in an abnormal way.People around despised this ‘evil gypsy’.When his beloved Catherine married the gentleman, Edger Linton, for wealth and reputation, Heathcliff’s heart broke completely.His hatred towards Hindley and the Lintons became stronger.When Catherine died, Heathcliff was like an active volcano, boom!
Heathcliff had a careful plan to revenge.In his generation, I’d like to mainly say something about his marriage with Isabella.This action is the key step to take over the property of the Lintons.and vexed Edger mentally.Just as Isabella’s angry words ‘Whatever he may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edger to desperation; he says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him…’Also, we can consider it his revenge to Catherine.He knew Catherine’s deep love towards him.He knew his marriage would hurt Catherine in the same way that she hurt him.The joy of revenge and the sorrow of love mixed together to become a very complicated feeling.Indeed, Heathcliff is such a complicated character.It’s not difficult to imagine his fierce inter struggles.Meanwhile, Heathcliff abused his wife, Isabella, as a sort of amusement.As he himself pointed out, his abuse of Isabella is purely sadistic, as he amuses himself by seeing how much abuse she can take and still come cringing back for more.According to a modern study, a lot of criminals were lack of love.They get apathy even hatred from the society.If the seeds of enmity are planted in people’s hearts when they were kids, how can we expect these people to be friendly and kind? What goes around comes around.H is a typical character.When hatred gets its foothold in his soul, his choice is revenge.When we are shocked by H’s violence, we can feel a little bit sadne, too.
Although maybe we can consider Hindley Earshaw and the Lintos Heathcliff’s enemy, it’s none of their children’s busine, right? We always say that the children are innocent.But Heathcliff could not stop the mad beast called revenge from extending its reach to the next generation.‘…I want the triumph of seeing…my child hiring their children to till their father’s land for wages.’ What a terrible and poor man! Because his own life is miserable, he wanted to let the next generation suffer from what he has suffered.He used to say to the five years old boy, Hindley’s son, Hareton: ‘Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!’ It’s the sort of thing that can be done by the demon.Heathcliff did make the boy as his own duplicate and ruined the boy.Will you be as lowly as a maid or a servant in you own house? It sounds quite ridiculous!1
But in a matter of fact, Hareton did so.Thanks to Mr.Heathcliff, he gave Hareton the very precious chance to experience such an unusual life.As we known, loving our own children is human’s nature.But it is not right for Heathcliff.Hatred blinded his eyes.In order to revenge, he could make use of his own son and watched him die in the end.As for Catherine Linton, the creature became a poor widow.She and Heraton loved each other but couldn’t get together because they were under devil Heathcliff’s control.Heathcliff abandoned everything and used all kinds of ways to reach his destination—revenge.Back to back tragedies were made, tragedies of the Earshaws, the Lintons and himself.
Now clamates, we can come out of Wuthering Heights for a moment.Next, I’ll tell you a mythology.
Once upon a time, there was a charming prince called Medea.She owned the power of magic.Her peaceful life would go on if Jason, one of the Greece heroes, had not appeared.Jason came there to get the Golden Fleece (the wool from a golden sheep), the symbol of a pricele treasure.Medea fell in love with him.She helped Jason get the Golden Fleece and betrayed her father and her own country and ran away with Jason.In order to get rid of the chase, Medea killed her brother and cut his body into pieces.After Medea and Jason settled down, Medea gave birth to two sons.But it’s not the happy ending.The king of the country wanted Jason to marry his daughter.Then Jason abandoned Medea who loved him and helped him a lot.He married the prince because of the wealth and the power.Medea was extremely sad and angry.She gave the prince a beautiful dre which contained poison.With out knowing the truth, the bride put it on.Obviously, the bride died.The king cried and held his dear daughter tightly in his arms.He also died because he touched the poison.But to Medea, it was far from enough.She killed her own sons in front of Jason.Though the father pleaded to ki his sons’ bodies for the last time, Medea refused him coldly.She flew away with her dead sons and her broken heart.Jason was left alone.He had lost everything.Finally, he ended his life with the sword.Thus, Medea became the godde of revenge.
After finishing the story, we can find that Heathcliff and Medea have a lot in common.Both of them had strong love and hatred.The most important thing is when they were treated by unfair things and betrayed by lovers, they chose to revenge: Heathcliff took steps to get all the property of the two families; Medea killed all the related people to pay back to Jason.To some extent, the revenge showed their rebellious spirit.Heathcliff and Medea didn’t comply with the unfair fate.They changed from victims to avengers.When we are shocked by the avengers, we feel pity at the same time.However, there is difference between Medea and Heathcliff.What’s the difference then? One is woman and the other is man? Of course not.The real difference is: it’s a total tragedy that Medea destroyed everything including herself; as for Heathcliff, although he lived most of his life with hatred and revenge, he gave up his revenge to the next generation, Heraton and Catherine.It’s a kind of revival of humanity.A moment later, my partner, Cathy, will analyze the revival of humanity to you.Today we talked much about the revenge, and I do hope the more we know the revenge, the more we value the harmony and the peace.Thank you!
