Books

Heathcliff (characters)

This character appears in 160 books.


  1. Wuthering Heights

    by Emily Brontë

    Heathcliff: The main character. Orphaned as a child, he is constantly on the outside, constantly losing people. Although he and Catherine Earnshaw profess that they complete each other, her decision to marry Edgar Linton almost destroys their relationship. He spends most of his life contemplating and acting out revenge. He is abusive, brutal, and cruel.

    Memorable Quotes by Heathcliff:

    “There you are, at your idle tricks again! The rest of them do earn their bread - you live on my charity! Put your trash away, and find something to do. You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight—do you hear, damnable jade?”

    “The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them. You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement, only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style, and refrain fromm insult as much as you are able.”

    “You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why id you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You love me - then what right had you to leave me? What right answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?”

    “I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”

    “'Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!' he answered. 'Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort? I expected such a transformation on raising the lid—but I'm better pleased that it should not commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a distinct impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been removed. It began oddly. You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit! I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter—all round was solitary. I didn't fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself 'I'll have her in my arms again! If she be c”

  2. Madame Bovary's Ovaries

    A Darwinian Look at Literature

    by David P. Barash

  3. Thursday Next: Book 3

    The Well of Lost Plots

    by Jasper Fforde

    Heathcliff: Fictional Character referenced several times. He is hated by the other characters in Wuthering Heights.

  4. The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge

    A Desk Reference for the Curious Mind

    by John Leonard

  5. Desire and Domestic Fiction

    A Political History of the Novel

    by Nancy Armstrong

  6. Sewer, Gas & Electric

    The Public Works Trilogy

    by Matt Ruff

  7. Revolution from Within

    A Book of Self-Esteem

    by Gloria Steinem

  8. Is Heathcliff a Murderer?

    Puzzles in 19th-Century Fiction

    by John Sutherland

  9. Shaggy Muses

    The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Brontë

    by Maureen B. Adams

  10. Fantasy

    The Literature of Subversion (New Accents)

    by Rosemary Jackson


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