Matthew Owens' Wuthering Heights Reading Diary

For my Character analysis I chose Heathcliff. A boy who's physical picture is painted in the first paragraph as Lockwood describes how his "black eyes" withdraw suspiciously under his brows. Starting the book with a such a dark character description provided author Emily Bronte with a way to captivate her readers attention, wanting to know more about Heathcliff. What is his story? What drives him? Who is he? The novel then continues to paint a picture of Heathcliff and yet he defies being understood by the reader. We are almost made to believe him to be something more than he is, a fabricated Romeo of sorts on the inside. Emily Bronte tests the reader in the same way Heathcliff does to Isabella, pushing us to see how many times we can be shocked by Heathcliff's violence yet still view him as a romantic hero. Something he never becomes, an illusion.