Who is the protagonist of “Wuthering Heights”?

Hopefully you’ve read my other musings on this novel. (If not, click on the tag.)

We know that Heathcliff and Nelly Dean are the only characters who are present at the beginning, middle, and end. It’s natural to look to them as potential protagonists.

However, film versions focus also on Catherine. In movies, she and Heathcliff are the main romantic pairing, even though the book portrays them as beyond romance. In the novel they have no sexual chemistry or desire to build a married life and family — they are simply one person in two bodies. For love in the book, look to Cathi and Hareton. Every meeting they have is described in the language of a romance novel. They begin star-crossed, overcome their adversities, and become a couple. We see them being ‘shipped at every step of the way and enjoy the unfolding of their love. All of the remaining characters who strike at and torment each other are forgotten due to the winsome duo at the end. We are redeemed by their tenderness and forgiveness. I don’t know how a faithful adaptation could leave them out and focus instead on the Catherine relationship.

Film versions also downplay Nelly’s character. She’s just the narrator, they say. That attitude ignores how often she moves the story forward. The conflict between her role as an innocent storyteller and an interfering servant is essential to the plot. She wins in the end. Her two “children”, the babies she nursed, fall in love and achieve happiness. Heathcliff’s plan to tear down the households is defeated. These competing objectives, Heathcliff vs. Nelly, are the foundation of the story. We need both of these characters in complete detail. To focus on Catherine is to miss the tension. Also, adding to the complexity, Nelly is one of the only people Heathcliff doesn’t treat with malice. They are comrades and adversaries simultaneously. Their objectives are opposite; neither can let the other win. Yet, they are kind to each other. They are the only characters who consistently treat each other with charity.

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Story Enneagram of “Wuthering Heights” (the novel)

Is this a compelling story? It’s been made into many film versions, so the obvious answer is yes. But why? It tells of unbelievable cruelty. Somehow showrunners have twisted this plot into a romantic drama with Heathcliff as a hero. Let’s see what the book actually says.

ONE

Introduce the players and the two house locations. We are approximately six months before the present day. 

The tenant of Thrushcross Grange (TG), Mr. Lockwood, is our entrance point. He walks over to visit his landlord Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights (WH). We meet some very unhappy people: Young Catherine (Cathi) and the rustic Hareton.

TWO

Lockwood returns the next day and becomes caught by a snowstorm and is forced to stay overnight. No one will help or take pity on him. Finally the housekeeper Zillah finds him a place to rest. This is Catherine’s room when she was a child. Lockwood sleeps in her cupboard bed and encounters her ghost. When Heathcliff finds him there he kicks him out and begs Catherine to come to him.

THREE

Lockwood, who caught a cold from his adventures in the snow, is bedridden. Nelly Dean, the housekeeper at TG and an old family servant at WH, entertains him with the story of Heathcliff, which is the majority of the book. Let the history begin . . .

Continue reading “Story Enneagram of “Wuthering Heights” (the novel)”

CATHERINE EARNSHAW, EIGHT

This is The Cathy, the one everyone who’s seen a Wuthering Heights movie probably considers the protagonist. Her maiden name is Earnshaw, her married is Linton. Her daughter is named Catherine Linton, so the Cathys in this story pile up and become confusing.

However, this is the Cathy who loves Heathcliff. (The one Kate Bush wrote a song about.) They are wild children together, running over the moors. Later, when Cathy grows into a beautiful and eligible young woman, she drops Heathcliff in order to marry her respectable and gentle neighbor, Edgar Linton. She loves him, too, in a different, less volatile way.

And then Cathy dies. Remember, I’m looking at the book characters. Merle Oberon dies at the end of the movie; in the novel Cathy dies in the middle and the other characters continue forward through the second half. For someone who seems central to the plot, she disappears in a shocking way.

Also, when you read the book, Cathy’s cruelty is surprising. She spits on Heathcliff when she first meets him. She’s barbaric and unrestrained until an injury lays her up at the Linton house for a month. Their gentility and manners change her. Because she’s not the protagonist, though, her motivations are muddy. She dumps her soulmate, Heathcliff, for an elegant life. She claims she can’t live without him — Heathcliff is her soul — but then she does for a while. The conflict between the two men wears her down and her health succumbs to weakness.

Cathy is not a kind person or even an admirable one. She is passionate sometimes (as opposed to Heathcliff, who is on fire every moment). What Character Enneagram could she possibly be?

She’s no Head Type. It’s plausible that she’s a Heart Type, but compared to Heathcliff she pales. I think we need to call her a Body Type. Her reaction to conflict is to strike or react physically. She longs for the moors, the fresh air, and the unencumbered space to run free. I could argue that when she marries and confines herself to a lady’s life in the house, she begins to decline. Heathcliff wants to get her outside to revive her spirit; it’s the right instinct.

This is an Eight. She’s too unbound by rules to be a One, and she’s too eager for conflict to be a Nine.

Interesting. I complain often about Hollywood making their girl boss characters an Eight as a default position. Cathy is a true and complex Eight. She’s not heroic, but she’s strong. Why does she step away from that strength to marry Edgar? Social expectation? A desire for comfort and beauty? She and Heathcliff are two halves of one person, by their own admission, yet she parts them.

I’ll dig into the actual story later. My answer must lie there, I hope.

ELLEN (NELLY) DEAN, SIX

Who’s that, perhaps you wonder. She’s the narrator and housekeeper. If you’ve seen the Wuthering Heights movies, she’s that older lady in the background, a gentle and tender presence.

Heh. That’s some high artistic license, considering Nelly’s role in the novel.

Nelly is the only character besides Heathcliff who spans the entire story. She’s there at the beginning, a child in the Earnshaw household when the Master brings Heathcliff home. She grows up with him and Cathy. When Cathy marries Edgar Linton, Nelly follows her into the new household. She’s the primary caregiver for Cathy’s motherless daughter. Although Heathcliff is cruel to everyone who isn’t Cathy, he’s kind to Nelly. They’re old comrades. She can even speak frankly with him and upbraid him.

This is a major character who’s barely noticed in the films.

She’s a tricky one, though. As the narrator, she speaks well of herself and her own actions, yet some of her choices are ruinous. She’s a tattler; she doesn’t really like Cathy and she undermines her. If a literary survey course were to study novels with an unreliable narrator, this book should be at the top of the list.

I’ll delve later into how the story changes if Nelly is its protagonist (versus Heathcliff).

In the meantime, what is her Character Enneagram? Whew, yikes.

She is a single woman her whole life and shows no sign of wishing to be married. When she cares for Cathy Jr., whom she loves dearly, she doesn’t necessarily envy the Linton’s family. Let’s say she’s not a Heart Type.

She’s a terrible busybody. And she’s very confident. She knows her role as a servant, but she also pushes the boundary, perhaps because she was raised among them. I’m leaning toward a Head Type.

She strikes me as too good a liar to be a Five, and she’s not adventurous enough to be a Seven. What if Nelly’s a Six? She has a clear definition of what’s right and wrong, even though sometimes it’s only her definition. Heathcliff is dangerous to others, but Nelly doesn’t fear him. She’s categorized him over their lifetime together. It allows her to be bold with him because he fits in the box she’s defined. For Heathcliff, he hates weak people the most; Nelly is strong with him, so he finds her companionable. She doesn’t have a physical dominance over him; it’s a dominance of character, something a Six would do well.

Story Enneagram of Season Two, “Avatar: the Last Airbender”

Let’s finish this! 

ONE

The first episode explains Aang’s Avatar state. Remember, coming out of Season One, the last thing we saw was Giant Fish Aang wrecking the Fire Nation in the North. He can’t control or understand this superpower and it frightens him. We also learn that, although he’s unbelievably strong, he’s also vulnerable. If he’s killed in the Avatar state, the entire reincarnation cycle ends.

We also get a brief reminder that Zuko and Iroh travel alone, outcast.

TWO

The Cave of Two Lovers, that ridiculously silly episode, encompasses the season’s Two. Aang and Katara, through plot contrivance, kiss. Aang’s affection for Katara is critical at the season’s Eight.

Also, Omashu’s on fire. Returning to Bumi was Aang’s plan for learning earth bending. Now he has no teacher, and that’s definitely Trouble.

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Bandcamp Friday

I mostly forget that I have music posted to Bandcamp, but recently I’ve been wondering if any of it stands up. I haven’t listened to Heart of Iron since I published it in 2019. After playing through the album, I would say that the singing is tolerable, the music is greatly enhanced by the musician who helped me record, and the lyrics are still my pride and joy in the project.

It sounds obscure and somewhat crazy now, but I wrote a musical screenplay of Jane Eyre. If you listen to the album and you’re familiar with the story, you might be able to guess which songs go with which part of the plot. (It plays in chronological order.) Fair warning, though: I sing Jane’s and Rochester’s songs. I tried to beef up my voice for Rochester, but that’s utterly ridiculous. I sound the same.

Bandcamp, I’m informed in a recent email, has brought back “Bandcamp Friday”, a day in which they waive their revenue sharing and pass all funds to the artist. Give the album a try, if you’re so inclined. On listening again to the songs, some were as I remembered — not bad — and a couple were worse. One song, though, “Fly”, which takes place at the story’s climax, gave me that great feeling every artist seeks on returning to past work: Did I write that? Damn.

Ash Wednesday, 2025

For the past three years I have set a painting per week as my Lenten observance. I’m very proud of this wall in my house where I display all of that work.

However, this year I will be following a private observance. I don’t have any encaustic ideas, and my weekly requirement to produce a painting, regardless of how finished it is, can be exhausting.

May your Lent (and mine) be fruitful.

HEATHCLIFF, FOUR

I’ve been re-reading Wuthering Heights. I’ll have something to say about the story later, but for now, let’s look at some Character Enneagrams.

First caveat: this is Heathcliff from the novel. More film versions of this story exist than I could possibly want to watch. Laurence Olivier gives one of the iconic portrayals, and it might be interesting at some point to compare the different well-known iterations of Heathcliff. For now, though, I’m looking at the book.

If you’ve only watched the movie(s) you might not know that Heathcliff is one of two characters who’s in the story from beginning to end — and the other isn’t Cathy. (Cathy dies halfway through. Most film versions ignore this.) The story arc in the book is labyrinthine and finding a protagonist is tricky, but focusing on Heathcliff as a throughline is a good choice.

He’s brought into the Earnshaw house as a child, probably at five years old. The Master finds him abandoned and begging in the city. Heathcliff is dark-skinned (maybe West Asian, maybe Native American) and speaks no English. He has obviously had a very rough life up to this point, and it doesn’t improve much. After the Master dies, his son and heir turns Heathcliff out into the stables to labor.

Heathcliff’s defining characteristic, after brutality and cruelty, is his love for Cathy. The novel barely touches on physical affection and never indicates that Cathy and Heathcliff are intimate. It’s their souls that merge and twine.

I want to say that Heathcliff is a Four. He is emotionally driven. Love for Cathy, hatred for Hindley Earnshaw, revenge on all who’ve hurt him — these are his motivations. Besides Cathy (and sometimes Hindley’s son Hareton), Heathcliff is temperate only to Nelly Dean, the housekeeper. Everything else is a high or a low, never a middle. He absorbs the abuse of his childhood, and the wonderment of a soulmate in Cathy, and sets them at his center. To contain the extremes of love and hate so completely seems very Four to me.