Just another episode of dysfunctional people and their issues.

     Was it just me, or did this seem to be like a show of "Jerry Springer" or "Dr. Phil?" I just kept seeing these kids fighting with each other, plotting the demise of another, and getting what they want no matter what. All I could think was that the young Catherine, Hindley, and Heathcliff are just plain Brats. (putting it nicely) I mean Hindley and Cathy didn't seem to care at all about the young boy their father had just brought home or that their father had been nearly killed (Bronte, 51), but listened quietly waiting until everything was done. Only to go search "their father's pockets for the presents he had promised."(52) Then on page 53 Heathcliff blackmails Hindley into giving him his colt when his turns lame. This is just what I saw. Mr. Earnshaw was no better. He played favorites it seemed, but when his health started to fail he went on to play the children. He would praise Hindley, then turn around and say "Hindly was naught, and would never thrive as where he wandered."(55) With Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw stopped to playing favorites as he did when Heathcliff was young, and would "grumble out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine."(55)

      On top of everything else Hindley, taking his role as Mr. Earnshaw was not any better. Treating Heathcliff as a servant instead of part of the family, as his father had done. Then I guess it was a way of revenge. So now this "wonderful" family is added to by the Linton family, and we are given more issues. (At this point I'm sure Dr. Phil would have given up.) We have a drunken and crazed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw. The two-faced Catherine, playing the spoiled Edgar Linton and the field boy Heathcliff. Then of course there is Joseph. (I'm not even sure what to say about him. I really need subtitles or a translator for him.) The only one who seems in their right mind is Ellen Dean, aka Nelly, who seems to be rational and tries to keep everyone from going completely insane.

     The fact that everyone introduced, so far, seems to be disturbed or dysfunctional, especially the Earnshaw family, is not what hit me the hardest. What I kept looking at was how each character behaved ans what they were called. Mr Earnshaw went from being a caring man and turned into a grumpy man. Hindley started out as a hate-filled boy, growing into a even more hate-filled young man, except for his love of his wife Frances. Then later Hindley turns for the worse and becomes a drunk and goes mad after Frances dies. Forcing those around him to avoid him as much as they can. Edgar changes very little and only wants to make Catherine happy, even if it makes him unhappy. Isabella seems jealous of Catherine when Heathcliff returns. Just because she has "fallen in love" with Heathcliff and the only person Heathcliff shows interest is Catherine. With Catherine it seems that she doesn't really change, but just puts up a false image of herself. Though she matures, she still seems to be that opinionated little girl from the beginning. Of course the "Catherine" she decides to be depends on who is around her. She is two-faced in her love for Edgar and her love for Heathcliff, and has no issue putting either of them down to prove a point. It's the fact that she sees herself doing the right thing and stating on page 102 "I'm an angel," when we clearly know that she definitely is not. More so, I would categorize her as the opposite.
    
     Heathcliff seems to be the most challenging. He doesn't really change through out the story except his appearance and the fact that he gets money from some where. We meet him as a "gypsy" child, left out by himself starving to death, but soon he is part of this dysfunctional family. He was called : "dog" by Hindley (52), "little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway" by Mr. Linton (62), "vagabond" by Hindley, after his fathers death (68), and then in Nelly's description on page 99 he has "a half-civilized ferocity... and eyes of black fire." All of these seem to be negative, and they are, but Heathcliff seems to live up to them in a way. No one knows of where he got his money or where he has been. He looks as if he was in the army from his "upright carriage." (99) He keeps being described as an animal or some unwanted wanderer, at least by most of the characters. Even being described as an animal that would "absolutely seize and devour [Isabella] up" if they were allowed to be together. (108) The main connection to Heathcliff being an animal comes from Nelly herself. In her history/story to Mr. Lockwood, Nelly says, "I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy."(108) I took this again as Heathcliff being an animal, more precisely the "evil beast" spoke of. Who the sheep is, I am not sure, but from the reading I can tell that he is still  planning his revenge against Hindley Earnshaw.

     Like I said above this is like something that would be seen on "Jerry Springer" or "Dr. Phil." Such a dysfunctional family trying to destroy each other. A young lady in love with two men. One of those men planning the down fall of the love interests older brother. Then to add to it all the young ladies sister-in-law falling in love with one of the men. Of course I have to throw the crazed Joseph in there somewhere, and the servant, Nelly, so that she could explain everything. All in all that would be an interesting episode. Either that or both Jerry and Dr. Phil would leave the stage and give up on them completely.