When Earnshaw first brought Heathcliff home, several characters alleged that the foundling story was a coverup and that Heathcliff was really Earnshaw's bastard. In that case, Heathcliff and Cathy would be brother and sister!
Later, when many people wanted to discourage their relationship, why didn't anyone warn Heathcliff and Cathy that they might be siblings?
This is a very good point, and one that was hinted at in the novel but intentionally never clarified. Honestly, I don't think it matters much. Either way, Cathy and H-cliff's romance was doomed via so many sources it doesn't pay to count. Yet, the thought of them potentially being brother and sister just adds another gloomy and depressing aspect to this most daring (especially for the time period) romance.
"Harold . . . That was your last date!"
But why didn't any of the other characters use this aspect as an argument against the romance?
share[deleted]
It's never even mentioned by any of the characters in the novel that they could be siblings. Not directly anyway. It's a theory that came up through people 'reading in between the lines'.
shareThis is just like what happens in one of my country's most famous romance: Dom Casmurro. There's something that would change the whole story, but we are never sure if it happened or not, so there are still people trying to find out if it happened or not.
shareI also think it was something that readers inferred for themselves. I don't remember any mentions of Heathcliff being the bastard son of Earnshaw, but it has been awhile since I read this book. However, too often people try to find hidden meanings that just aren't there. Is it so out of the realm of possibility for Mr. Earnshaw to have taken pity on a poor orphan boy? Not everything is smoke and mirrors. Maybe Mr. Earnshaw wanted a son that he could truly love and saw this in Heathcliff. Lord knows he didn't see much to love in Hindley.
share
"I don't remember any mentions of Heathcliff being the bastard son of Earnshaw,..."
Yeah, I don't remember that being implied anywhere in the book either.
"Is it so out of the realm of possibility for Mr. Earnshaw to have taken pity on a poor orphan boy?"
I totally agree. Especially since Heathcliff was based upon an actual orphan which Emily Bronte's great-grandparents in Ireland, had apparently brought home & adopted while on a business trip themselves.
Tomorrow is another day
I doubt it.
I just finished reading the novel and didn't see any undertones that suggested that Heathcliff was Earnshaw's son. Especially considering the boy had no name when Earnshaw found him and Earnshaw just picked a name out for him and that name went for the boy's first and last name. If Heathcliff had been a child of Earnshaw's, certainly Earnshaw would not have feigned to not know the child's name.
www.freewebs.com/regencylady
No one knew who heathcliff's parents were. I wish that he would have found out where he came from though. I think he wanted to know bc he was made to feel like such an outsider not deserving of love. Cathy and Mr Earnshaw were the only people who really cared for and loved him.
shareMy mum thought of that too. Of all the orphaned children that he could have rescued from homelessness, what made Heathcliff so special to him unless he was his own child?
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I can't help being a gorgeous fiend. It's just the card I draw!-Lestat
"Of all the children that he could have rescued from homelessness, what made Heathcliff so special to him unless he was his own child?"
Taking into consideration that Heathcliff was supposedly a Gypsy, & knowing how Gypsies are pretty much discriminated in all of Europe, there was probably no orphanage that would take him in, after being abandoned by his Gypsy clan.
That was my own interpretation as to why almost everyone in the novel--from Hindley Earnshaw to the Lintons--treated Heathcliff so badly as a child: Because he was a Gypsy.
First of all, the correct term is Romany. Secondly, I think in the beginning it is questioned whether or not Heathcliff was, in fact, Mr. Earnshaw's bastard, which is what started the schoolboy fight. Heathcliff also appears to have green/blue eyes like Mr. Earnshaw, which could hint to him being his child. Also, whether you look at it in the miniseries or in the book, there could have been plenty of Romany orphans that Earnshaw could have met and it was Heathcliff that he decided to care for.
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I can't help being a gorgeous fiend. It's just the card I draw!-Lestat
"First of all, the correct term is Romany."
Yes, I realize that, however, the book says "Gypsy," because at the time it was written, that was what Romanies were called by Europeans, as it was wrongly presumed that they were descended from people who migrated from Egypt. Sort of like how Native Americans(from North all the way to the South)were all called 'Indians' because Christopher Columbus thought he had landed in India(ironically, it is India, where the Romanies did migrate from).
I do not recall in the book anyone questioning whether Heathcliff was Old Earnshaw's bastard(in the movie they do, but, they also changed a few things around in the movie), it was seemed to have been understood by everyone that he simply brought home an orphan out of the pure kindness of his heart.
"there could have been plenty of Romany orphans that Earnshaw could have met and it was Heathcliff that he decided to care for."
Or Heathcliff was the only Romani orphan, who was abandoned by his clan, when Old Man Earnshaw found him & decided to take care of him.
2 things I should tell you:
a)when Old Man Earnshaw brings Heathcliff home, he names him Heathcliff after a son he & his wife both had(between the births of Hindley & Cathy), who had died. If this actually was Earnshaw's child with another woman, why doesn't he give the child the name his mother gave him?
b)Heathcliff was inspired by an actual orphan which Emily Bronte's Irish great-great-grandparents found while on a business trip somewhere in England. And both husband & wife went on the trip, so it was highly unlikely that it was the husband's love child with another woman.
In the book I don't remember anyone questioning that. Ofc you can wonder but I don't think that's an important topic or else the author would mention something. And in the book Heathcliff has dark eyes, hair and skin, so does not look like Mr. Earnshaw.
Don't dream it: be it!
I don't think so.
It is emphasized in the novel that Heathcliff was a Gypsy. Taking into consideration that Gypsies are pretty much outcasts in every single country in Europe, & have a reputation for thievery, it makes far more sense that Old Mr. Earnshaw caught little Heathcliff trying to pick pocket off of him, & abandoned by his own Gypsy clan.
I'm reading it right now and see nothing that suggests that Heathcliff was his son.
To those who ask: "Why Heathcliff?", I ask why not? I've seen many odd couples in my time and have learned not to overthink the why's of it. Love is unpredictable. Maybe something in Heathcliff sang to Mr. Earnshaw in a way that other orphaned children didn't or couldn't. He mentioned that he saw the child starving in the streets. Maybe he was the only child in distress that he saw?
I think a lot is left out to allow the reader the freedom (or viewer to those who haven't read this yet) to flesh out the story in a way that makes sense to them. That is what makes classic stories classics, they can change with age or a new set of eyes. Just my humble opinion.
Couldn't have said it better myself, Ladydy.
When I read the story, it didn't even occur to me that Heathcliff was Mr. Earnshaw's bastard child. All I saw in the story was Mr. Earnshaw's compassion towards a destitute Gypsy orphan.
But the little details--why did Earnshaw take 3 days to walk the 60 miles to Liverpool? Was that the real story or was he buying time for himself? Why not save time and take a wagon or horse? Also, he reprimands Hindley for teasing the poor, fatherless child--"as he called him." Bronte's exact words. Also, he favors Heathcliff above the other two. He could've had an affair with a gypsy woman on one of his road trips and something could have happened to her. It's plausible.
shareIt really can be argued on both sides. However, I believe that Earnshaw simply had compassion for the boy without parents or even knowing his own name.
shareI haven't seen this version of the movie, but there is no mention of him being Mr. Heathcliff's bastard son in the book. Only giving him the name of Heathcliff from a son that died so young.
I do seem to remember in the version with Timothy Daly, Cathy and Hindley's mother hinting at it and that always made me angry when I watched, since it's so unlike the book.
IMO, the best version is the one with Ralph Fiennes, even though they don't show the whole head bashing/tree scene. One of my favorites.