Wuthering Heights

Hareton Earnshaw is the unfortunate young man born to Hindley Earnshaw and his delicate wife Frances, arriving just before his mother's death from consumption. Left wholly into Nelly Dean's care as an infant, Hareton is systematically neglected and degraded by his father's dissipation and, after Hindley's death, by Heathcliff's deliberate abuse and denial of education. Growing into an uncultivated, rough laborer of the moorlands, Hareton appears—at first meeting—coarse and illiterate, bearing the physical and moral marks of systematic deprivation. Yet beneath this rough exterior lies an honest, warm, and intelligent nature shaped by neither malice nor vice but pure circumstance and abandonment. His honest attachment to Heathcliff, forged through childhood dependency and habitual loyalty, blinds him initially to his uncle's cruelty, though he will not suffer anyone to speak ill of him. When the younger Catherine, his cousin, takes genuine interest in his education and character, Hareton's mind and features brighten rapidly. His brightening mind brightens his features, adding spirit and nobility to his aspect. By the novel's end, his resemblance to the elder Catherine—particularly in his eyes, which precisely mirror hers—becomes evident, suggesting the restoration of Earnshaw pride and the possibility of redemption through education, affection, and the breaking of Heathcliff's chains.

Edgar Linton is the refined, gentle son of the established Linton family at Thrushcross Grange, representing the civilized, genteel world that stands in stark contrast to the wild moorlands of Wuthering Heights. Graceful and soft-featured, with serious eyes and a mind to match his person, Edgar is all courteous civility and tender kindness—yet his spirit lacks the fierce vitality that animates Catherine Earnshaw's passionate nature. He loves Catherine deeply and marries her, offering her a socially elevated position and a household of invariable courtesy; however, his gentle temperament and emotional delicacy prove insufficient to satisfy her conflicted heart or shield her from her lingering devotion to Heathcliff. Though possessing the courage of his convictions, Edgar shrinks from confrontation and fears Heathcliff's darker nature, a terror that becomes painfully relevant when Heathcliff returns to the neighborhood. His marriage to Catherine is marked by love on his side and ambivalence on hers—he endeavors to draw her attention through books and companionship during her illness, but his efforts are largely unheeded as her mind turns inward and her affections drift elsewhere.

Hindley Earnshaw is the old master's son and rightful heir to Wuthering Heights, a man whose nature shifts dramatically across the novel's span. Initially a boy open to companionship with the foundling Heathcliff, he undergoes a mysterious three-year absence that returns him sparer, paler, and fundamentally altered in speech and dress. Upon inheriting the Heights, he becomes tyrannically opposed to Heathcliff, driven by wounded pride and an almost sadistic need to degrade the boy who once was his equal. His marriage to a gentle, nervous woman provides no restraint; instead, her expressed dislike of Heathcliff inflames his old hatred. As master, Hindley compounds his cruelty by denying Heathcliff education and forcing him into degrading farm labor. His despair at his wife's death from consumption pushes him into reckless dissipation—drinking, gambling with increasingly unsavory companions, and abandoning all moral restraint. By the novel's latter stages, his body bears the physical marks of his self-destruction: bruised, cut, weakened, a man systematically unmade by his own bitterness and excess. His downfall becomes intertwined with Heathcliff's slow ascent, as Heathcliff methodically plays upon his recklessness to strip him of his property and his dignity.