Hareton Earnshaw
| Hareton Earnshaw | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Emily Brontë |
| Information | |
| Spouse(s) | Catherine Linton |
| Relatives |
Hindley Earnshaw (father) Frances Earnshaw (mother) Catherine Earnshaw (aunt) |
Hareton Earnshaw is a character in Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. He is the son of Hindley Earnshaw and Hindley's wife, Frances. At the end of the novel, he makes plans to wed Catherine Linton, with whom he falls in love.
Heathcliff arrived underneath just at the critical moment; by a natural impulse he arrested his descent, and setting him on his feet, looked up to discover the author of the accident.
Frances dies shortly after giving birth in June 1778 to Hareton, which results in Hindley's descent into a life of anguish and inebriety, so Hareton is cared for and nursed by Nelly Dean, the primary narrator of the story. When Nelly leaves to reside at Thrushcross Grange with Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton, Heathcliff seeks revenge on Hindley and gains control of Wuthering Heights. Hindley dies shortly after the decease of Catherine Earnshaw, and Heathcliff sets out to treat Hareton as cruelly and unjustly as Hindley treated him: he reduces Hareton to servant-boy status at the Heights. Nevertheless, Heathcliff's impulsive paternal instincts towards Hareton are revealed when, during one fraught episode in which Hindley's alcoholism takes him too far, he saves the infant from a potentially fatal fall from the top of the Heights' staircase.
Because of the dark, savage environment in which he grows up, the boy becomes an ignorant, dirty and uneducated man, unable to read or write. When Cathy Linton comes to Wuthering Heights sixteen years later, Hareton has not changed, but it is apparent that he sees Heathcliff as his own father and loves him dearly. Heathcliff has a secret regard for Hareton as well, but he wishes him to feel the same pain that he himself experienced in childhood. Hareton forms an attraction to Cathy, but she dismisses it with disgust, insisting that he is a mindless, rude beast of a man. This only continues after Cathy's husband, Linton Heathcliff, dies, and Cathy becomes accustomed to the terror of Wuthering Heights. She grows just as rude and cold as its inhabitants, and, whenever Hareton expresses any amount of regard or tenderness towards her, she spurns it.
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