Most of my essay, I'm not done
I only have paragraphs 1, 4, and 5
As a child, Heathcliff experiences many appalling events. The most palpable evidence comes from Hindley. Mr. Earnshaw would like the two boys to grow up as brothers. Once, he brings home two horses as gifts. When one of the horses falls lame, Heathcliff threatens Hindley for the better one. Enraged, Hindley throws a weight “hitting [Heathcliff] on the breast, [who] staggered up immediately, breathless and white.” (31) Physical violence being the only mistreatment, Heathcliff learns how to endure. Once Mr. Earnshaw dies, however, Hindley returns and continues the violence. Hindley even requests of his wife “Frances, darling, pull his hair as you go by.” (17) This abuse is worse because Hindley is now the position of power; Heathcliff cannot go to anyone for help. The maltreatment also occurs from other sources than Hindley, who “drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labor out of doors instead.” (36) After having beaten Heathcliff before, Hindley degrades Heathcliff by placing him below servant status. He cuts off education, which would help if Heathcliff ever had to go somewhere outside of their moorland. Events such as these permit further problems with Catherine and the Lintons, and form a foundation for the cruelty that Heathcliff later expresses.
Throughout his life, Heathcliff expresses cruel and often sadistic traits; his treatment of Catherine, Hindley, and the Lintons exemplify this. After an unfortunate Christmas night, during which Heathcliff has been shut out of the party, the resentment toward Hindley has augmented. Nelly speaks with Heathcliff, who responds, “I’m trying to decide how to pay Hindley back.” (48) Normally when a kid makes a threat he or she will brood over it and then give up, Heathcliff sticks through with his plot forever more. With the revenge, he chains the events down through Catherine, Cathy, and Hareton. Had there not been witnesses, Heathcliff would have dashed Hareton’s head against the ground, after having accidentally saved the child. “It expressed, plainer than words could do, the intentest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge.” The immense anger flooding his veins sets up for future revenge and also, without meaning to, Heathcliff sets Hindley even further back, because now Hindley knows that the last remnants of Frances, have been saved by Heathcliff, his greatest hate. When Catherine leaves, Heathcliff traveled somewhere in Europe and became wealthy, handsome, and well kept. He returns to find Catherine as a Linton. At this point, Heathcliff has lost, lost Catherine, lost his life. Heathcliff again forms a plot, this time, to take Isabella as a torture to Edgar. Even the way he courts Isabella is sadistic, “I wish I could do this to all things in your life save one.” Isabella thinks this is sweet, that he wants her above everything else. Really, Heathcliff is showing his contempt for the Lintons and just wants Catherine back. While Isabella is trapped at the Heights, Catherine falls ill. Heathcliff takes this chance to both guilt and hurt Isabella, “He told me of Catherine’s illness, and accused my brother of causing it; promising that I should be Edger’s proxy in suffering till he could get hold of him.” (114) Even after having a thorough on Edger, Heathcliff will not settle with what he has. He could have a good life with his chosen wife, but instead uses her to ease his feelings of Edgar. One of the last provocative things Heathcliff does to his generation is when Isabella locks him out of the Heights. Heathcliff struggles to get in and when he does, Hindley receives a thorough beating. Afterwards, Isabella says, “Catherine used to boast that she stood between you and bodily harm.” (140) Without Catherine around, Heathcliff no longer feels any guilt from his misbehavior. He does not even stop with those he holds the grudge against, but continues on towards the next generation.
The second generation abuse starts towards the end of the first generation. Just after Hindley dies, Heathcliff decides to continue his social rampage with 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!" At this moment Heathcliff, who blames Hindley for all that has befell him, directs his lifelong hatred towards the would be heir of the household. Instead of allowing Hareton to live a normal life, he has to tweak everything so that it is unfair. Hareton did not learn to read till after he was twenty, “It’s some damnable writing,’ he answered ‘I cannot read it.” Young Cathy has ventured to the Heights by this point, and she sees Hareton’s name across the door. Heathcliff has even kept the family history secret, not allowing Hareton to know his true potential. Possibly, Heathcliff saw this as a kindness, ignorance is bliss, but he could have dropped the grudge and brought Hareton up as a son, a real one. Although Heathcliff is not straightforward with his hatred, he even mistreats his own son. Foreshadowing these events, Heathcliff says, “I know how to chastise children, you see.” (207) The two major things that Linton must endure are being taken away from Edger and Cathy, and not having Heathcliff admits his illness. Heathcliff only chastises the children, and does not grant pleasures, Hareton is set to labor and Linton is left to be sickly. “One is gold put to the use of paving stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver,” (169) as the two boys grow, Heathcliff rejoices with this accomplishment. Although he does not like his son, Heathcliff has put the unbalance that mirrors what Hindley though fair, proving in his mind, that he is the stronger of the first generation boys. When Cathy and Nelly come visit the Heights, Heathcliff tells Nelly, “I should treat myself to a vivisection of those two, as an evening’s amusement.” (206) This is cruel in the utmost sense because a vivisection is “the action of cutting into or dissecting a living body.” (dictionary.com) No matter how much victimizing Heathcliff has taken, there is hardly much worse in the world he could do. The maliciousness that Heathcliff exercises in thought and action prove that he has No moral stand and is evil.
