Catherine the elder is likewise often imagined as an ideal romantic heroine, a survivor of abuse and the more sympathetic of the pair.It also doesn't help that Heathcliff, in some adaptations, is played by rather good- looking actors. Catherine admonishes Isabella that "He's not a rough diamond-a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man" and Heathcliff comments on Isabella's naivety and romanticism regarding him, mocking it later in the book. The story itself makes fun of this sentiment among her readers by making 18-year-old Isabella Linton idolize him. Many female readers insist that Heathcliff is a dashing hero, despite his many, many shortcomings (even to the point where they thought his digging up Catherine's body was romantic).Cathy by contrast knows what a sociopath he is, and continues to love him. In fact, you could argue that Isabella is stronger than Cathy once Heathcliff reveals all his bad traits, she falls out of love with him, does her best to resist him and eventually escapes from Wuthering Heights. In the 1939 film, she's not wrong when she calls Cathy out for her possessive jealousy. He did his best to hide his bad qualities from her, and she was already feeling isolated after Cathy humiliated her by telling everyone her private feelings. He does go out of his way to seduce her, putting on a good show of being a gentleman - and he pursues her after Cathy tells him of her crush. Is Isabella looked on too cynically by the narrative? Yes she's young and naive, but she doesn't seem to be attracted to Heathcliff's bad boy tendencies as much as opting not to be prejudiced like her brother and sister-in-law and give Heathcliff a chance.Are any of the book's narrators (Lockwood, Nelly, and others who recount off-page incidents) reliable or not?.
Was Linton an outright bastard from the moment he appears, or could he have been reformed by not being brought up by his dad?.
When Isabella falls in love with Heathcliff, what motivates Cathy I's speech warning her of Heathcliff's cruelty and her subsequent humiliating reveal of her feelings to Heathcliff? Pure selfish jealousy (as Isabella believes), genuine desire to protect her sister-in-law (as she herself claims), or both?.Earnshaw justified in his Parental Favoritism of poor orphaned Heathcliff over his two selfish, bratty biological children, or were Cathy and Hindley just typical rowdy kids who could have grown up to be better adults if they hadn't been treated as The Unfavorites? Was Heathcliff always destined to be a "fierce, pitiless, wolfish man" (after all, he was hard, sullen and oddly quiet even as a child), or could he have been a better person if not for his hardship-filled early life?.The 1970 film went ahead and made this part of the story. Other scholars have suggested that Nelly was secretly in love with Hindley - as she takes his death especially hard, was quite aloof towards his wife Frances and seems to care for Hareton as a Replacement Goldfish.