How Is Heathcliff A Gothic Hero

“Mine first…Mine last…Mine even in the grave.” As opinionated by Louisa May Alcott is a comment perfectly fitting for a novel like Wuthering Heights. Riddled with passionate and obsessive love along with deeply motivated thirst of revenge and a disturbing lack of identity shown by Catherine, Wuthering Heights has earned the title of a Gothic Novel in modern literature.

The Gothic elements in the novel create feelings of gloom, mystery, and suspense in the reader while tending to the dramatic and the sensational theme of the novel- like incest, diabolism, necrophilia, and nameless terrors. It crosses boundaries, daylight and the dark, life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness. Sometimes covertly, sometimes explicitly,
He is mysterious, dark and exceedingly dangerous. He is wholly bent on revenge for perceived past wrongs and his passion is all-consuming. Like many Gothic anti-heroes, Heathcliff’s love and fury lead him to destroy the woman he desires. In the end it is Catherine’s love for Heathcliff which ultimately destroys her. His return reinforces this and she cannot live with herself anymore, she tells Heathcliff “You have killed me - and thriven on it, I think.” (Bronte 1847, 167) Though he most certainly did not wish Catherine harm, he also certainly played a part in her mental and physical
Isabella Linton falls in love with Heathcliff and is abused so heartlessly that she is forced to leave him, a social taboo for the period, this can be seen in this excerpt from her epistolary confession to Ellen Dean “I assure you, a tiger, or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens... I hate him - I am wretched - I have been a fool.” He shows no remorse as to the fate of Isabella, nor even their son Linton whom he neglects to seek medical care for when he has fulfilled his purpose in usurping for Heathcliff Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff’s unwarranted acts of violence against defenseless victims show his utter disregard for human suffering. Heathcliff’s relentless sadism manifests itself in his use of torture and imprisonment; classic Gothic features. When he imprisons young Cathy at Wuthering Heights he does so to emotionally torture Edgar Linton, the man who took Catherine from him, but it is equally tortuous to poor Cathy “If papa thought I had left him, on purpose, and if he died before I returned, could I bear to live?” Heathcliff’s use of cold-blooded emotional and psychological torture elevates him beyond the mere scorned man of passion to the disturbed and cruel monster that he becomes. Like any other Gothic anti-hero, or in many cases the antagonist, Heathcliff is bent on vengeance and does not care who must