Hare

ton

Earn

shaw

Character TraitsIlliterate, denied an education by Heathcliff

“He appeared to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute”

“Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as twisted as another, with the same wind to twist it.” – Heathcliff

Heathcliff’s degradation of Hareton repeats Hindley’s degradation of Heathcliff.

Grows throughout the novel, Catherine moulds him into a suitable match

“I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father possessed”

“fearless nature”

Shows a constancy, both in his love for Catherine, and also his love for Heathcliff (?)

Hareton redeems the Earnshaw family by breaking the pattern of abuse with which he was raised, earning back the property, and earning Catherine’s love

Physical Description “elf-locked, brown eyed boy”

“ruddy countenance”

“ruffianly child, strong in limb, dirty and garb with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his mouth”

“Well made, athletic youth, good looking in features, and stout and healthy”

.”..his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer”

 Relationships

The second half of the novel, focusing on Hareton’s relationship with Catherine [2] mirrors Heathcliff’s for Catherine [1] in the first. But clearly it is more temperate and domestic.

In contrast to the first, the latter tale ends happily, restoring peace and order to Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

“The most important feature of young Catherine and Hareton’s love story is that it involves growth and change. Early in the novel Hareton seems irredeemably brutal, savage, and illiterate, but over time he becomes a loyal friend to young Catherine and learns to read. When young Catherine first meets Hareton he seems completely alien to her world, yet her attitude also evolves from contempt to love.” – Sparknotes

“His honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off rapidly the clouds of ignorance and degradation in which it had been bred; and Catherine's sincere commendations acted as a spur to his industry. His brightening mind brightened his features, and added spirit and nobility to their aspect”

“Hareton’s aspect was a ghost of my immortal love, of my wild endeavors to hold my right, my pride, my degradation, and my anguish” - Heathcliff

“Hareton seemed a personification of my youth” – Heathcliff

 Images with which they are associated

 Associated with natural imagery

“Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable circumstances” – Nelly on Hareton

“He opened the mysteries of the fairy cave, and twenty other queer places”