The Unjustified Justice: A Re-reading of Wuthering Heights
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v7i9.1445Keywords:
Generation, Heathcliff, Justice, Responsible, Revenge.Abstract
For the last hundred and fifty years, Wuthering Heights has been studied and criticised minutely in countless ways. For any person reading the novel, a door opens in front of him to shed a new light to look on. This article of mine is a result of that; re-reading the novel, the characters, the plot, the actions, and the judgment that has been carried out on both, the responsible and the innocent ones. Heathcliff’s position in the novel shifts from hero to the villain, more of a like an anti-hero, when he becomes the embodiment of unjustified justice. For splitting him from his spiritual-twin, ‘Cathy,’ he fastidiously worked out his scheme to avenge. He seemed so sure and self-righteous about his right to avenge on Hindley, Edgar, Isabella, and then on the children who were not even born at the time of the supposed crime. For this, interestingly my perception about Heathcliff kept changing through the novel, villain or victim, on like this. Although Heathcliff and his actions have been scrutinized in thousand ways, my paper is an attempt to evaluate those actions from a paradoxical view: that Heathcliff’s role as the judge, jury and executioner actually served him to be the epitome of unjustified justice.
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