Throughout the novel Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, most of the major Characters
learn, grow, and change due to the experiences and challenges that they face
throughout their lives. Heathcliff transforms from a companion and lover of
Catherine's to a harsh and brutal adult. When Heathcliff is described, he is
said to be a "dark-skinned gipsy, in aspect, in dress, and in manners a
gentleman," (3, 24-25). He is an outsider from the beginning. Yet,
Catherine falls in love with him despite his "vagabond" (102)
appearance. Heathcliff's transaction begins after he overhears Catherine and
Nelly's conversation on whetehr or not Catherine should marry Edgar Linton. He
had listened until he heard Catherine say that it would degrade her to marry
him, and then he stayed to hear no farther. Then Heathcliff leaves for three
years without a trace. Heathcliff returns as a "tall man dressed in dark
clothes, with a dark face and hair." (86, 10-11). He was also described as
being "an unclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation;he's
a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man." Throughout the three years in which
Heathcliff disappeaared, he became exactly what he was scared of as a young boy.
Hindly Earnshaw treaated Heathcliff as an outsider, and looked down upon him
with hate and disgust. Living through this led Heathcliff tobecome just what
Hindly said he was. Heathcliff was told his whole life that he was an outsider
and a failure. He eventually transformed into just that. Heathcliff come across
as a dark and evil person when deep down inside he only wants to be happy with
the one he loves. If he was treaated equally in his life, he would not have
become the evil man that he did because of this type of behavior would not have
been present for him to copy. Heathcliff could have been a good person if the
enviornment he grew up in treated him equall despite his differences.