‘Heathcliff Is Best Seen as a Product of Circumstance.’ How Far and in What Ways Do You Agree with This View?

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‘Heathcliff is best seen as a product of circumstance.’ How far and in what ways do you agree with this view? As a gothic novel, Bronte portrays Heathcliff to have the contextual features of a gothic protagonist such as his tendency to be influenced by past events and occasional association with what is non-human. The idea that Heathcliff is a product of circumstance creates foundations for the argument of the nature vs nurture debate. To a Victorian reader, his actions and motifs would be shocking and may appear to be the sign of sin, due to the satanic references throughout the novel, and reinforced through the religious beliefs of that time. Despite this, to a modern audience Heathcliff is a product of circumstance due to the psychological trauma he would have experienced due to the way he was brought up in the Earnshaw household. In addition to this, Bronte implies through Lockwood that Heathcliff is a product of circumstance as he states ‘I think that circumstance determined me to accept this invitation’ which therefore conveys how it is not just the life of Heathcliff that is of circumstance, but that it should even be told as a circumstance in itself. An important aspect as to why Heathcliff would be explained as a product of circumstance would be his traumatic upbringing that he suffered. Heathcliff was thrown into a new family who most did not accept him due to his different appearance ‘dirty, ragged, black-haired child’ so was therefore treated differently, most by Hindley. To a modern audience, the treatment that Heathcliff received would have made him feel isolated and the psychological effects from that can be very damaging. Therefore it could be argued that Heathcliff’s rude and soulless nature is a product of the bad nurture as a child. In addition to this, Heathcliff is also portrayed as a typical gothic protagonist due to his actions being

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