Heathcliff - why were ( & probably still are ) so many women in love with him?

I wonder how Emily Brontë was able to write it, given her sheltered life in such a remote place. Did she hear of such a character in the area? Was her brother the catalyst, given his proclivities? I guess I could ask AI but I’m more interested in what GNetters think!

I was only chatting to someone the other day that had recently read Wuthering Heights for the first time ( when he retired he decided to read all of the classics; after reading Wuthering Heights he took himself off the the moors). I told him that I’d had a big row with my then boyfriend. He stormed off but returned to overhear me telling my flatmate how much I hated him. He then went to Australia and made himself a fortune. My friend said he didn’t remember that part of the book so I googled it last night ( thanks to this thread, actually; I realised there were some characters in the book that I’d forgotten about).

I think it's partly, as said upthread, that you meet the character as a child. He's a mystery, and he soon develops a real affinity with Cathy.
Then they both get really unkindly treated & that brings them even closer.Then he hears Cathy tell her nurse that she loves him but could never marry him because he's "common" & rough. After that he hates everyone, especially the Lintons.
He actually is a "bad boy" that could've turned out OK if he'd got the girl.

As a book I found it unutterably boring. I only watched one film version and I don't think I ever finished it.

I can understand the 'bad boy' thing from a distance - and I'm sure others are right that some women seem to think they will be the one to change them. Some women don't only right to prisoners, they marry them.

Psychologist Emma Kenny says: “Engaging in a relationship with a prisoner can give a woman a sense of importance and value, knowing they are a lifeline to someone in a dire situation. It provides them with a role as a confidante, supporter, and sometimes even a saviour.”

Emma says women can also see prisoners “not as they are, but as they could be with the right support and love.” She adds: “This idealisation process can be very compelling. It allows the woman to envision a future where their love has transformed a troubled individual into a better person. For these women, the crimes committed can also add an element of danger and excitement to the relationship.”

Plus I suppose they always know where they are.

fancythat

butterandjam

Take a look at Mumsnet. It's stuffed with women who find abusive bastards irresistible.

Is it because, initially, they all think they will be the one to change them?

I also do wonder whether some people find danger attractive.
Less boring. Less predictable.

Me, I like a quiet peaceful life.

Plenty of unboring and unpredictable men about without having to so desperate that anyone considers abusive bastards.

I am not for the quiet life, but I had plenty of choice without making my life a misery.

Agree. many women feel they’ll be the one to ‘tame’ them, Rarely happens.

Will never understand why women write / wrote to people like Ian Brady, Peter Sutcliffe, Ian Huntley. They must have mental health issues of their own.

I didn't read WH until I was in my late 20s. I did manage to plough through to the end but it was hard going. An awful book about awful people; nothing remotely attractive about the Heathcliff character. It should have been pulped and forgotten years ago.

butterandjam

Take a look at Mumsnet. It's stuffed with women who find abusive bastards irresistible.

Is it because, initially, they all think they will be the one to change them?

I also do wonder whether some people find danger attractive.
Less boring. Less predictable.

Me, I like a quiet peaceful life.

I've never gone in for all that soppy romance stuff, I won't get near such authors, Bronte and Mills & Boon etc., but especially Heathcliff and those like him.

Being a woman abuser is bad enough, but torturing and murdering animals is a billion % no from me, never an excuse for animal abuse.

I know some women love the dark, brooding types, James Dean, Sean Penn, etc., but there's a difference between rebellious and evil!

There are women writing to and even marrying those like Krays, Brady, Huntley, Bronson and so on! Urm...no!

I loved Wuthering Heights. A fantasy book about a fantasy man. Excitement every day with him i imagine!!

We did Wuthering Heights for A level, many years ago, and as a teenager I loved Heathcliff at the beginning. And we all loved Hareton! All wanting him to get together with the young Catherine. That story is rarely covered in the films and television productions. I know I'd see Heathcliff differently if I re-read it now, though.

I read Wuthering Heights once years ago and thought it one of the stupidist and almost unreadable books I had ever read. Full of the most uunbelievable and unlikeable characters i have ever read. It is a book that would have been long forgotten if it had not been written bya Bronte. Certainly, not the sort of book where youtake any of the characters seriously.

I was delighted that when my DD discovered Wuthering Heights, quite independently, she reached exactly the same conclusions about it that I did.

He's a fantasy character, and an awful one at that. But women fall for him because, rather like the sad women who very bizarrely write 'love' letters to blokes who are in prison for horrific acts, they can allow their imagination to run riot because they know they will never meet them. It's a safe fantasy.

Apparently, women would write to Peter Sutcliffe. Takes all sorts to make a world......

I can see why women were attracted to him, he was dark and brooding, however his treatment of Hindleys son was cruel and I find that sort of thing unattractive.
Heathcliffe was very obsessive and his love for Cathy took over his whole life even after her death. I liked Heathcliffe as a teenager and found the characterdevilously attractive. I remember doing a essay on Wuthering Heights for my O level English literature.

I read the book when I was about 12.
I don't know what it is about the story but I've always loved it.
I've watched the film with Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff a few times.
I love the song Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush.
I'm enthralled by it.

What some of us want is someone who looks like a bad boy, but who he know is good on the inside - where it matters!
And reader, I married him...

This thread has reminded me that I recently found a video of a song that Jim Steinman wrote, which was based one of his favourite books - Wuthering Heights. He said of it

This song is an erotic motorcycle. It's like Heathcliff digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight. You can't get more extreme, operatic or passionate than that. I was trying to write a song about dead things coming to life. I was trying to write a song about being enslaved and obsessed by love, not just enchanted and happy with it. It was about the dark side of love and about the extraordinary ability to be resurrected by it once dead. It's about obsession, and that can be scary because you're not in control and you don't know where it's going to stop. It says that, at any point in somebody's life, when they loved somebody strongly enough and that person returns, a certain touch, a certain physical gesture can turn them from being defiant and disgusted with this person to being subservient again. And it's not just a pleasurable feeling that comes back, it's the complete terror and loss of control that comes back. And I think that's ultimately a great weapon.

I’m not sure about the motorbike bit, mind! In the accompanying video there are brief glimpses of a character who is either Heathcliff, taken from the film with Lawrence Olivier, or a modern reenactment. I was mesmerised by it, I must admit! It’s decades since I read the book, though.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=By82Udvc53w

Plus Heathcliff is always played by very good looking actors

I seem to remember a stage version where Cliff Richard was in the starring role, think it was called ‘Heathcliff’.

He wore an appalling wig and looked ludicrous.

I never found him attractive, although I did like bad boys as a teenager. I disliked the book intensely. The use of dialect and the multi narrative just annoyed me. There were no sympathetic characters either

Take a look at Mumsnet. It's stuffed with women who find abusive bastards irresistible.

I have read Wuthering Heights five times: A level, degree, once after hearing a radio adaptation and twice for different book groups.
I started by loathing the psychopathic Heathcliff, and much of the book, but eventually understood him more due to his appalling upbringing. Nature or nurture?
Petted by old Mr. Earnshaw, foisted on a family who despised him, bullied and reviled by Hindley, in thrall to the self-centred and destructive Cathy, then driven by the opportunity to revenge himself on his enemies. Born or made?
There are a few signs of a human nature towards the end of the book, but definitely not a romantic hero nor ever a man with whom to fall in love.
An astonishing creation, nonetheless.

I was sympathetic until until he mistreated his wife and killed the dog. There aren't many likeable characters in Wuthering Heights.

Dee1012

I think you’ve nailed it.
Plus Heathcliff is always played by very good looking actors.

I think if you read the second half of the book, which is rarely dramatised, Heathcliff is a very unkind man

I do wonder how much the screen adaptations have influenced this...as they generally do tend to focus on the initial Cathy / Heathcliff relationship?

I can remember my heart beating a lot faster at the age of 14 when I watched and heard a very stunning Olivier "Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” [blush}