Revenge is formally defined as the desire for vengeance. Many people have felt this way, usually towards people who have made them suffer anytime before in their lives. One of the most reoccurring themes in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights was revenge. Heathcliff, the main character, felt this way throughout the novel. His reasons for doing such bad things were, in some instances, a way a victim could get back at his past oppressor, and at other times, his treatment of innocent people was just pure evil. Throughout his life, Heathcliff was very often discriminated against. Hindley, Heathcliff's main tyrant did everything in his power to make his life impossible. Edgar Linton, a friend of the Earnshaw family, took Catherine, Heathcliff's true love, away from him. Heathcliff found that he could get his revenge in full if he did the same immoral things to them and also to their children.
The motive of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1847) is vengeance. Relieved of all impertinences of time and place, the situation is this: a man sits down and reflects: I was born in shame; men have denied me education; and they have taken from me the woman I loved, on the ground that I am unworthy of her. I am not responsible for being what I am; I did not preside over my birth; the demon within me that I tried to suppress, others loosed from his bands. The vengeance that the Almighty has allowed to sleep I myself will make and wreak upon those who have wronged me, and upon their children. (Cross, vol. 7). .
Although Heathcliff was seen as a victim in the beginning of the novel, where he garnered sympathy from the reader, it later became apparent that he metamorphasized into a villain, a spirit who was eager to reap revenge upon those who were cruel to him in life.
Instead of brining the gifts he promised Catherine and Linton from his trip in Liverpool, Mr. Earnshaw brought home a dirty, raggedy, gypsy-like little boy, who was baptized as Heathcliff.
