Emma’s Reviews > Wuthering Heights > Status Update

I really do like Heathcliff. I think he’s a very interesting, complex character. But the more I read, the more confused I am that anyone could read this book and interpret him as white. His race others him and greatly influences the extent of the abuse he receives. I really have come around to Jacob Elordi, but his casting (and the rest of the adaptation I’m sure) was very tone deaf.

“[Heathcliff] took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if she feared he would vanish were she to remove it. He did not raise his to her, often; a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed back, each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from hers.”

“‘But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn't make him less handsome, or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed, and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!'”

“I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair — it pleased him rarely to see her gentle — and saying —
‘Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?’
And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered,
‘Why cannot you always be a good man, father?’”

IT’S ME I’M CATHY I’VE COME HOMEE