#heathcliff’s race – @thevampiricnihal on Tumblr

“Nihal came out of this faint with smiling eyes. Then she saw at the side of her knees, chafing her ice cold hands in his palms, the whitened Beşir whose delicate Ethiopian face was white with a dull whiteness”.

(My translation). (italics mine)

I find this sentence interesting in light of people recently using Heathcliff whitening with fear as evidence that he is white:

Of course there is a language difference, and Halit Ziya is actually accentuating just how devastated Beşir is by bringing attention to his “Ethiopian face” whitening. But all that is to say, this is bullshit reasoning to prove that a literary character is white.

@struttingstreets @julyzaa @princesssarisa @winged-cries

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #beşir #wuthering heights #heathcliff #Heathcliff’s race

thevampiricnihal

I am surprised that Isabella’s racist assertion that Heathcliff looks like the local fortune-teller’s son

(“The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella lisping “Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He’s exactly like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn’t he, Edgar?”)

is taken here as a hint that Heathcliff really is the local fortune-teller’s son.

You would think that this is not Wuthering Heights but Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby”.

I find this to be an interesting reading and would be open to a fanfic with this premise, but I think the line’s intention is more “garden-variety racism” than “secret parentage conspiracy”.

There really are readings as varied as there are readers, especially with this book.

Edit:

In “Desiree’s Baby” too:

“The baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche’s little quadroon boys—half naked too— stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers. Désirée’s eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she was striving to penetrate the threatening mist that she felt closing about her. She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and over. “Ah!” It was a cry that she could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered.” (italics mine)

We first think that this line is about Desiree’s baby being a quarter Black like “La Blanche’s little quadroon boy”, and indeed that’s the case. But I think if we closely read the short story we can also theorize that Desiree’s baby and La Blanche’s son are siblings, I think it is implied that Desiree’s husband is sleeping with his slave La Blanche:

“And the way he cries,” went on Désirée, “is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche’s cabin.” (italics mine)

Why is Desiree’s husband at La Blanche’s cabin? I think he is the father of her child.

This theory that Heathcliff looks like “the fortune-teller’s son” because they are siblings and not just because they are of the same ethnicity reminded me of this line and this implication in this short story.

I wrote my undergraduate thesis about “Desiree’s Baby” and I think the fans of discussing Heathcliff and the “Heathcliff Earnshaw” theory should read more American fiction on race. They play with these ideas even more than Wuthering Heights.

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #Heathcliff’s race #the heathcliff earnshaw theory #kate chopin #desiree’s baby

thevampiricnihal

From Susan Meyer’s book Imperialism at Home

Heathcliff’s race is also important in making him “one of a kind” in his surroundings. He becomes distinct from the various working-class characters that surround him. As the housemaid in this quote here says, “nobody could mistake him besides”:

If Heathcliff weren’t ethnically different from everyone else in the book, then his rise wouldn’t be as threatening as Meyer says. Because he does not consider himself as one with the other working-class characters and does not ally with them. He does not treat the servants as terribly as he treats the upper class characters (king) but he definitely does not think Nelly and himself are equals either.

That’s what makes him more forgivable to me than someone like Ibrahim Magnificent Century. Ibrahim is a member of an entire slave class, and he treats other slaves like shit. Heathcliff is one of a kind in his surroundings.

@longagoitwastuesday @laurenshield

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #susan meyer #Heathcliff’s race #ibrahim pasha #ibrahim paşa

thevampiricnihal

From Northrop Frye’s The Anatomy of Criticism

I am reading a book about Ancient Greek proto-racist ideas and it is interesting that in those texts “the dark Asiatics” are “intelligent but weak” and “blond Europeans” are “courageous but primitive”. And Orientalism in general seems to continue that trend. But in the above nineteenth century convention of the “dark rival vs fair rival” the “dark haired rival”, even when s/he is the “wrong” choice, is typically the stronger more memorable character.

Wuthering Heights goes pretty extreme and Heathcliff is almost an evil Superman, undefeatable by anything but his own psyche, whereas blond Lintons (and Heathcliff’s own blond son) are slight sickly weaklings (except for Cathy Linton but she inherited her mother’s black eyes and those eyes cause her triumph). No wonder modern racists are still bothered by Heathcliff not being white.

I mean, Heathcliff is still a complicated case. Linton Heathcliff, blond and Lintonlike as he might be, is still Heathcliff’s own progeny, and Graeme Tytler reads Heathcliff as “being defeated by Earnshaw and Linton physiognomies” in his essay “Physiognomy in Wuthering Heights”. But these are debatable implications deep within the text. A superficial reading (or rather the reading that will actually leave an impact on most readers) showcases Heathcliff as both intelligent, strong and courageous, and the Lintons as cowardly weaklings.

A racialized character’s charisma and intelligence often leaves a bigger impact on the casual reader/viewer than his/her eventual defeat does. Some German women who watched the vile 1940 Nazi propaganda film Jud Süss wrote love letters to the actor playing the titular Jewish character. This is an extreme example and it of course does not lessen that particular film’s vile impact (its creators were tried at Nuremberg), but it shows that these things are not always received according to the creator’s intentions.

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #Heathcliff’s race #northrop frye #nazi propaganda #graeme tytler

thevampiricnihal

I know that the discourse is done and over with now, but the thing about the “white Heathcliff” is:

We can’t know for sure how Emily Bronte imagined Heathcliff to look like (though I think there is enough data to think that he was not supposed to be white) but I think trying to make Heathcliff white and “palatable” is antithetical to what this character represents. In any other Victorian novel the protagonist’s mysterious origins would be explained at the end and he would be revealed to be an heir to a large fortune or at least to be “white all along” (thank you, Lindsay Ellis) but this is not so with Heathcliff. With Heathcliff you are supposed to sit with the discomfort of not knowing. He is supposed to be a profoundly marginal figure. The right-wingers on Twitter who try to make him “palatable” for themselves are I think thinking of Heathcliff as “Mr. Darcy but self-made”. He is not that. He is supposed to make you uncomfortable. Think of what ethnicity for Heathcliff would make you most uncomfortable, he is that ethnicity.

If I were making a Turkish retelling of Wuthering Heights I would suggest Heathcliff being Kurdish, Armenian, Romani, a nomadic Alevi Türkmen or a Syrian refugee, all in the same sentence, and then sit with everyone trying to make sense of it.

It is not supposed to make much sense. Heathcliff is not supposed to be a palatable character to the leftist side of things either, he is not supposed to be politically correct, elaborate, detailed, concrete “representation” either. He is meant to produce a sense of discomfort. How to adapt such a character? Well, maybe you shouldn’t.

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #Heathcliff’s race #lindsay ellis

thevampiricnihal reblogged

thevampiricnihal

The differences between Earnshaws’ and Lintons’ racism is fascinating.

Earnshaws’ racism is more the result of their dislike rather than its cause (Hindley likes calling Heathcliff “Gipsy” but that’s because he is jealous of his father’s preference for him) and they often coat their prejudice in religious language (“as dark as if it came from devil” by Mr. Earnshaw, “flaysome divil of a a gipsy” by Joseph). Nelly is a bit more literary but still fanciful (“Emperor of China” and “Indian queen”).

Lintons’ racism on the other hand is far more vicious and systematic and coated in more pseudoscientific language. They make legal threats, make references to physiognomy, pin others’ crimes on him, and make more “concrete” and “educated” guesses on Heathcliff’s origins:

And then we have the relatively cosmopolitan Lockwood who regards Heathcliff’s race as a minor curiosity.

It is like the “curve of racism”.

Wuthering Heights is a book that will never run out of things to say.

artemideaddams

I am out ofmy depth like but I think something can be said about (probably not voluntary on the author's part) this reflect quite well the difference between racism in America and racism in Europe (particularly Western and/or Northern Europe) especially how they were expressed in the XX century. (But there are trace of this even today imho).

I don't think it was a legit author's intent or anything but I just think it's interesting.

thevampiricnihal

I think it is not really about America vs Europe since all of these characters are English and so was their author.

I think it is more about the levels of “civilization” these characters are on.

Earnshaws do notice Heathcliff’s coloring and are prejudiced but it is a more “Medieval/Early Modern” (it says “1500” on Wuthering Heights’s door), a more “gut instinct” type of prejudice. It is not the systematic “scientific” racism yet.

Lintons on the other hand are more “civilized” and “modern”. They truly hate Heathcliff because of his race. Their references are to the pseudoscience of their day, not to religion. They arrived at the point of Enlightenment, they arrived at the skull-measuring “scientific” racism. Twitter racists are still on this level. (I guess this type racism was more prevalent in USA so you might have a point there).

Nelly’s Arabian Nights-influenced Romantic exoticism and exultation of the foreign is in direct reaction to the racism of the Enlightenment. This exultation can also turn into regarding the Other as a “monster” (“little dark thing” “Is he a ghoul or a vampire?” “I had read of such hideous incarnate demons”). We are told that Nelly reads a lot and is basically an autodidact. Of course Nelly’s reading of vampire literature is maybe a bit anachronistic too, since the book ends in 1802.

Lockwood is the most “civilized”. He is the more sophisticated city-dweller. He still cares about Heathcliff’s foreign looks enough to notice them, but finds them “interesting” instead of “fearful”.

There might be a level which truly is “colorblind”, which truly does not care at all, but I don’t know who in the book represents that level. Maybe Catherine as a child?

Note: I haven’t done research for this so please take this with a grain of salt but I do think that I stumbled onto an interesting idea here.

@vickythestrange @princesssarisa @winged-cries

#wuthering heights #heathcliff’s race

thevampiricnihal reblogged

bethanydelleman

Maybe the reason people won't make a canonically-correctly-coloured Heathcliff is because there is no easily accessible metaphor. I read a post saying something like "the white family that takes him in treats him like shit," but that's not accurate. The father treats him as a favourite and even names him after a deceased child of the family. The daughter is his best childhood friend and then they fall in love. It's only the son who hates Heathcliff and treats him poorly and you can easily argue that has way more to with the father's favouritism and the very strange adoption than the colour of Heathcliff's skin.

And then what do you do with the second generation part? Heathcliff goes from sympathetic to a straight out villain, basically enslaving the child of his enemy and kidnapping his niece to marry his dying son in some twisted revenge plot (Edgar didn't like Heathcliff but nothing he did merits that level of revenge). And then Heathcliff dies and everything kind of gets reversed, so its not like he won in the end.

Even Cathy not marrying Heathcliff has more to do with money and the fact that he's an orphan than the colour of his skin. I don't know what Emily Brontë was really going for and maybe no one else can figure it out either. Or at least a way to tell it in a satisfying way.

(I'm not actually excusing anyone here, cast Heathcliff properly! But I just imagine this table of writers like of like... 🤷🏼‍♀️)

thevampiricnihal

I think there is one exact point in the novel that is really truly 100 percent about racism and it is their initial encounter with the Lintons when they trespass on Thrushcross Grange as children:

This is very much a passage about racism, almost parodically so.

But overall I agree with you. Wuthering Heights is overall not a narrative about racist victimization, I said that, but that would be too simplistic. But it is also not exactly a racist narrative about the dangers of incorporating an outsider either - Heathcliff is a “blessing of God” as well as “dark as if he came from the devil”. But it is also not a narrative that completely transcends race, Heathcliff is still very much defined by his darkness, and there are plot points that wouldn’t make sense if he looked like everyone else in the book.

This might sound weird, but I think Wuthering Heights is great in a way that transcends its actual literary merits (it does have high literary merit, but you know what I mean). It still unnerves us, we still can’t contain it. This debate made me upset on Twitter because I read some truly ahistorical and racist and textually inaccurate bullshit over the last few days, but I also think that there is some merit to having a disagreement over this: It proves that Wuthering Heights as a text is still unnerving and alive. It is a myth almost.

If everyone who spoke about this, from all over the political spectrum, truly knew the book, I think the debate itself could be more valuable than the hypothetical mediocre “politically correct” adaptation would be.

josie-marks

I think to deny racism as one of the themes in the novel is a poor interpretation of it, I said what I think about the first op's arguments on the tags of my last reblog.

bethanydelleman

I'm not denying the racism, but to me at least, you can get almost all this behaviour without Heathcliff being a different race.

I've known a lot of blended families and promising your kids presents, then returning with zero presents but instead a human child is basically the worst introduction this kid could have had. And then Mr. Earnshaw explicitly favours Heathcliff above his own children. I've known same-race step-siblings who hate each other for much less. I would bet full siblings would hate each other when subjected to this treatment.

And then Hindley leaving Heathcliff out of the inheritance? John Dashwood does that to his same-race half-siblings in Sense & Sensibility. People are greedy and will get away with whatever if there isn't a will. And treating a person who is seen as an interloper like crap? Jane Eyre is treated just as badly as Heathcliff and she's both related and the same race as her aunt and cousins. And that's written by another Bronte sister. Jane's treatment is due to her poverty, a trait that Heathcliff happens to share.

So to me, the relationship between Heathcliff's treatment and his race is pretty darn muddy.

thevampiricnihal

“And then Hindley leaving Heathcliff out of the inheritance? John Dashwood does that to his same-race half-siblings in Sense & Sensibility. People are greedy and will get away with whatever if there isn't a will.”

I am not saying this against anyone in particular in this thread, but where does this idea that “Hindley denied Heathcliff an inheritance” comes from? Hindley didn’t deny Heathcliff an inheritance, there was no inheritance for Heathcliff. He was never formally adopted, and there is absolutely no hint of a will that Hindley secretly destroyed or something like that. Heathcliff wasn’t entitled to anything legally, he wasn’t entitled to anything but basic human decency and maybe not even that.

As for Heathcliff’s race and how it effects the plot, I think it does kind of effect the plot when you take Lintons into the account. Lintons explicitly treat Heathcliff worse because of his race. I also will say that, even by Earnshaws, Heathcliff is called “gipsy” as often as he is insulted for being poor, maybe even more often.

But yeah you can have the bare bones of the plot and the Hindley vs Heathcliff drama while Heathcliff is white. Plenty of adaptations over the years did just that, and could convey the general plot of Wuthering Heights just fine. It is not exactly an Othello situation where you simply can’t do it if he is the same race as everyone else. But those adaptations certainly lost some undefinable something when Heathcliff looked like everyone else.

There can be told an interesting story about an adopted child who actually looks like everyone else in the family but is still inexplicably insulted with racial slurs because of their class position. One of my favorite Turkish novels, Kızılcık Dalları, is about an adopted girl who is called a “gypsy” as an insult despite being Turkish like every other character in the book and not looking different from the other characters in the book. But Wuthering Heights is not that story. Heathcliff is described as dark-skinned even after he becomes a rich man by Lockwood who knows nothing about his past. His is a story of someone who really does look different from everyone else in his community and you lose a layer of the story when you ignore that.

bethanydelleman

I compared John Dashwood to Hindley because of the implication that Mr. Earnshaw wanted, but did not or could not legally demand, Heathcliff to be provided for after his death, which is in this threat from Heathcliff: "Throw it,” he [Heathcliff] replied, standing still, “and then I’ll tell how you [Hindley] boasted that you would turn me out of doors as soon as he [Mr. Earnshaw] died, and see whether he will not turn you out directly.” In both cases, there is no will or legal right to an inheritance.

I guess the point I was trying to make here, which I may have articulated poorly, is that Hollywood tries to slot characters and stories into easily identifiable tropes and Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff defy that. I think they are so worried about portraying a character of colour incorrectly that they just aren't, which is actually worse. He's a really complex character and it's a really complex story that cannot easily be flattened into some heartwarming anti-racism message so I guess no one wants to try?

thevampiricnihal

Yes, I think you are right. Hollywood simply doesn’t want to make anything too complicated and Heathcliff’s race is a complicated topic. You won’t get “The Blind Side” out of Wuthering Heights.

This fear of complexity is why most adaptations have a problem with adapting the second half of WH too, it too makes the story more complicated than a “romance movie”.

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #Heathcliff’s race #the blind side

thevampiricnihal

The differences between Earnshaws’ and Lintons’ racism is fascinating.

Earnshaws’ racism is more the result of their dislike rather than its cause (Hindley likes calling Heathcliff “Gipsy” but that’s because he is jealous of his father’s preference for him) and they often coat their prejudice in religious language (“as dark as if it came from devil” by Mr. Earnshaw, “flaysome divil of a a gipsy” by Joseph). Nelly is a bit more literary but still fanciful (“Emperor of China” and “Indian queen”).

Lintons’ racism on the other hand is far more vicious and systematic and coated in more pseudoscientific language. They make legal threats, make references to physiognomy, pin others’ crimes on him, and make more “concrete” and “educated” guesses on Heathcliff’s origins:

And then we have the relatively cosmopolitan Lockwood who regards Heathcliff’s race as a minor curiosity.

It is like the “curve of racism”.

Wuthering Heights is a book that will never run out of things to say.

#wuthering heights #Heathcliff’s race

thevampiricnihal reblogged

corvidae-quills

bethanydelleman

Maybe the reason people won't make a canonically-correctly-coloured Heathcliff is because there is no easily accessible metaphor. I read a post saying something like "the white family that takes him in treats him like shit," but that's not accurate. The father treats him as a favourite and even names him after a deceased child of the family. The daughter is his best childhood friend and then they fall in love. It's only the son who hates Heathcliff and treats him poorly and you can easily argue that has way more to with the father's favouritism and the very strange adoption than the colour of Heathcliff's skin.

And then what do you do with the second generation part? Heathcliff goes from sympathetic to a straight out villain, basically enslaving the child of his enemy and kidnapping his niece to marry his dying son in some twisted revenge plot (Edgar didn't like Heathcliff but nothing he did merits that level of revenge). And then Heathcliff dies and everything kind of gets reversed, so its not like he won in the end.

Even Cathy not marrying Heathcliff has more to do with money and the fact that he's an orphan than the colour of his skin. I don't know what Emily Brontë was really going for and maybe no one else can figure it out either. Or at least a way to tell it in a satisfying way.

(I'm not actually excusing anyone here, cast Heathcliff properly! But I just imagine this table of writers like of like... 🤷🏼‍♀️)

thevampiricnihal

I think there is one exact point in the novel that is really truly 100 percent about racism and it is their initial encounter with the Lintons when they trespass on Thrushcross Grange as children:

This is very much a passage about racism, almost parodically so.

But overall I agree with you. Wuthering Heights is overall not a narrative about racist victimization, I said that, but that would be too simplistic. But it is also not exactly a racist narrative about the dangers of incorporating an outsider either - Heathcliff is a “blessing of God” as well as “dark as if he came from the devil”. But it is also not a narrative that completely transcends race, Heathcliff is still very much defined by his darkness, and there are plot points that wouldn’t make sense if he looked like everyone else in the book.

This might sound weird, but I think Wuthering Heights is great in a way that transcends its actual literary merits (it does have high literary merit, but you know what I mean). It still unnerves us, we still can’t contain it. This debate made me upset on Twitter because I read some truly ahistorical and racist and textually inaccurate bullshit over the last few days, but I also think that there is some merit to having a disagreement over this: It proves that Wuthering Heights as a text is still unnerving and alive. It is a myth almost.

If everyone who spoke about this, from all over the political spectrum, truly knew the book, I think the debate itself could be more valuable than the hypothetical mediocre “politically correct” adaptation would be.

josie-marks

I think to deny racism as one of the themes in the novel is a poor interpretation of it, I said what I think about the first op's arguments on the tags of my last reblog.

bethanydelleman

I'm not denying the racism, but to me at least, you can get almost all this behaviour without Heathcliff being a different race.

I've known a lot of blended families and promising your kids presents, then returning with zero presents but instead a human child is basically the worst introduction this kid could have had. And then Mr. Earnshaw explicitly favours Heathcliff above his own children. I've known same-race step-siblings who hate each other for much less. I would bet full siblings would hate each other when subjected to this treatment.

And then Hindley leaving Heathcliff out of the inheritance? John Dashwood does that to his same-race half-siblings in Sense & Sensibility. People are greedy and will get away with whatever if there isn't a will. And treating a person who is seen as an interloper like crap? Jane Eyre is treated just as badly as Heathcliff and she's both related and the same race as her aunt and cousins. And that's written by another Bronte sister. Jane's treatment is due to her poverty, a trait that Heathcliff happens to share.

So to me, the relationship between Heathcliff's treatment and his race is pretty darn muddy.

thevampiricnihal

“And then Hindley leaving Heathcliff out of the inheritance? John Dashwood does that to his same-race half-siblings in Sense & Sensibility. People are greedy and will get away with whatever if there isn't a will.”

I am not saying this against anyone in particular in this thread, but where does this idea that “Hindley denied Heathcliff an inheritance” comes from? Hindley didn’t deny Heathcliff an inheritance, there was no inheritance for Heathcliff. He was never formally adopted, and there is absolutely no hint of a will that Hindley secretly destroyed or something like that. Heathcliff wasn’t entitled to anything legally, he wasn’t entitled to anything but basic human decency and maybe not even that.

As for Heathcliff’s race and how it effects the plot, I think it does kind of effect the plot when you take Lintons into the account. Lintons explicitly treat Heathcliff worse because of his race. I also will say that, even by Earnshaws, Heathcliff is called “gipsy” as often as he is insulted for being poor, maybe even more often.

But yeah you can have the bare bones of the plot and the Hindley vs Heathcliff drama while Heathcliff is white. Plenty of adaptations over the years did just that, and could convey the general plot of Wuthering Heights just fine. It is not exactly an Othello situation where you simply can’t do it if he is the same race as everyone else. But those adaptations certainly lost some undefinable something when Heathcliff looked like everyone else.

There can be told an interesting story about an adopted child who actually looks like everyone else in the family but is still inexplicably insulted with racial slurs because of their class position. One of my favorite Turkish novels, Kızılcık Dalları, is about an adopted girl who is called a “gypsy” as an insult despite being Turkish like every other character in the book and not looking different from the other characters in the book. But Wuthering Heights is not that story. Heathcliff is described as dark-skinned even after he becomes a rich man by Lockwood who knows nothing about his past. His is a story of someone who really does look different from everyone else in his community and you lose a layer of the story when you ignore that.

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #Heathcliff’s race #kızılcık dalları #Othello

thevampiricnihal

Charlotte Bronte wrote this in a letter while Emily was still alive:

I have mentioned this letter a couple of times over the last week but I think it deserves its own post. I find it fascinating, and not just because of the “race debate”.

I find this relevant not just because of the racial aspect but also because it goes against the somewhat-common reading that the author didn’t care about Heathcliff’s social plight. I mean, I doubt that Emily would call her protagonist “a mere demon”, that’s probably on Charlotte, but I still find it unlikely that this view as a whole is just Charlotte’s - she probably had discussed the novel with her sister. Interestingly Charlotte abandoned this more socially-motivated reading of Heathcliff’s characterization in favor of reading him as “demonic from the start” after Emily’s death, as revealed in the below excerpt from the 1850 introduction.

But the obsession with Heathcliff’s physical darkness and race very much persists in both readings of his character.

This is probably partially on Charlotte as a person, she does strike me as more “concerned” with racial stuff than Emily was (there is a reason why Bertha’s race is more discussed than Heathcliff’s despite Heathcliff being his book’s main character and Bertha being a voiceless side character) but I still don’t think that she would emphasize it this much if Emily didn’t find it relevant at all. Maybe the sisters didn’t have a proper book club discussion about Wuthering Heights, but they did read parts of the books they wrote to each other, and they also did talk about Wuthering Heights’s reception. I don’t think that Charlotte would come up with a reading entirely unsuggested by Emily, and the fact that her reading of Heathcliff’s character changed for the (even more) essentialist after Emily’s death suggests to me that her original reading of the character might have been influenced by Emily’s views on him.

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #heathcliff’s race #charlotte bronte #jane eyre #bertha mason #emily brontë

thevampiricnihal reblogged

burningvelvet

Here are a few excerpts from Wuthering Heights discussing Heathcliff's race, showing how Brontë left the matter intentionally ambiguous yet still attempted to make it clear that he wasn't white:

[Here Mr. Earnshaw refers to Heathcliff as "it" when introducing him to the Earnshaw family for the first time] "'. . . you must e’en take it as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.'"

"But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman . . ."

"Something stirred in the porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair."

"'Black hair and eyes!' mused Linton. 'I can't fancy him. Then I am not like him, am I?' 'Not much,' I answered: not a morsel, I thought, surveying with regret the white complexion and slim frame of my companion . . ."

"'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad," I continued, "if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly . . .'"

"'God forbid that he should try!' answered the black villain."

"Heathcliff’s face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and he sighed. 'But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn’t make him less handsome or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!'"

"I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool—a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway."

"You’re fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen . . ."

"'That Heathcliff—you recollect him, sir—who used to live at Mr. Earnshaw’s.' 'What! the gipsy—the ploughboy?' he cried. 'Why did you not say so to Catherine?' 'Hush! you must not call him by those names, master,' I said."

thevampiricnihal

Great list. Isabella also references “his black father” which probably means “the Devil” but is also a reference to his skin color.

But the right-wingers on Twitter will say:

- He is merely tanned because he works outside. Hence him wishing to have “fair skin”.

- His “darkness” only means he is as dark as, I don’t know, Mr. Bean.

- But his “darkness” also means that he is brooding.

- The G-word is either a simple reference to him being poor or a reference to him being an Irish Traveller. He can’t be Romani, never mind him being likened to a “fortune teller’s son” based on his looks alone.

- He is called a “Spanish castaway” so he must be from Spain, hence he is European. Let’s ignore the fact that “American or Spanish castaway” can also mean him being from Spanish colonies.

- “Indian Queen and Emperor of China” is just Nelly being fanciful and is not a reference to him being foreign. (The reference to him having been “kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England” is always ignored).

- The fact that Heathcliff could father a child as white as Linton Heathcliff is proof that he was white. Because no mixed race child ever had been blond. (And obviously, Emily Bronte knew all about Mendelian genetics).

- He whitens once with fear so he is white.

I have read so much bullshit over the last week.

The one (1) thing they can’t really “explain” is him being called a “Lascar” (Asian - usually South Asian - sailor). Especially when I point out to them that Charlotte Bronte found this one word relevant enough to quote it in her 1850 introduction to Wuthering Heights:

burningvelvet

I left out the "black father" quote for the reason you mentioned, considered including the sailors quote but removed it for length, & considered including that Charlotte Brontë excerpt as I've posted it here on my blog before and believe that it says a lot that Charlotte (having some notion of the original authorial intent) felt the need to emphasize Heathcliff's racial background in her assessment of him.

thevampiricnihal

Charlotte also wrote this in a letter while Emily was still alive:

I find this relevant not just because of the racial aspect but also because it goes against the somewhat-common reading that the author didn’t care about Heathcliff’s social plight. I mean, I doubt that Emily would call her protagonist “a mere demon”, that’s probably on Charlotte, but I still find it unlikely that this view as a whole is just Charlotte’s - she probably had discussed the novel with her sister. Interestingly Charlotte abandoned this more socially-motivated reading of Heathcliff’s characterization in favor of reading him as “demonic from the start” after Emily’s death, as revealed in the above excerpt from the 1850 introduction.

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #heathcliff’s race #charlotte bronte #emily brontë #emily bronte

thevampiricnihal

“‘And what is my father like?’ he asked. ‘Is he as young and handsome as uncle?’

‘He’s as young,’ said I; ‘but he has black hair and eyes, and looks sterner; and he is taller and bigger altogether. He’ll not seem to you so gentle and kind at first, perhaps, because it is not his way: still, mind you, be frank and cordial with him; and naturally he’ll be fonder of you than any uncle, for you are his own.’

‘Black hair and eyes!’ mused Linton. ‘I can’t fancy him. Then I am not like him, am I?’

‘Not much,’ I answered: not a morsel, I thought, surveying with regret the white complexion and slim frame of my companion, and his large languid eyes—his mother’s eyes, save that, unless a morbid touchiness kindled them a moment, they had not a vestige of her sparkling spirit.”

(Chapter 20)

People (including actual critics) also said that Nelly only referencing Heathcliff’s “black hair and eyes” and not his skin color here is proof that Heathcliff is white, but I think when you read the entire passage it is clear that Nelly is intentionally minimizing to Linton how little he looks like his father.

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #Heathcliff’s race #linton heathcliff