Heathcliff's Takeover of Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff's Takeover of Wuthering Heights marks the culmination of his long-nurtured revenge against the Earnshaw family, transforming the orphan boy who arrived as a dirty, ragged, black-haired child from the streets of Liverpool into the absolute master of the house that once spurned him. The takeover is not accomplished through violence or confrontation but through the cold machinery of debt and mortgage law, a method that proves more devastating than any physical conquest. By the time the takeover is complete, Hareton Earnshaw, who should have been the first gentleman in the neighbourhood, lives in his own house as a servant, deprived of wages and ignorant that he has been wronged.

The Economic Mechanism of the Takeover

The foundation of Heathcliff's seizure of Wuthering Heights lies in the financial ruin of Hindley Earnshaw, who mortgaged every yard of land he owned for cash to supply his mania for gaming. Heathcliff, returning to the neighbourhood as a tall, athletic, well-formed man with an upright carriage suggesting military service, positioned himself as the mortgagee, the creditor holding the debt against the entire property. When Hindley died, the whole property was mortgaged, and the lawyer advised that the sole chance for the natural heir was to allow him an opportunity of creating some interest in the creditor's heart, that he might be inclined to deal leniently towards him. This hope proved futile, as Heathcliff had no interest in leniency. He proved to the attorney, who in turn proved it to Edgar Linton, that Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned, and that he, Heathcliff, was the mortgagee. In that manner, Hareton was reduced to a state of complete dependence on his father's inveterate enemy.

The Moment of Possession

The transfer of power is dramatized at Hindley's funeral, where Heathcliff maintains a hard, careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow, expressing at most a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult work successfully executed. As the people bore the coffin from the house, Heathcliff displayed something like exultation in his aspect. He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner, and previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child onto the table and muttered with peculiar gusto, 'Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!' The unsuspecting child was pleased at this speech, playing with Heathcliff's whiskers and stroking his cheek, while Ellen Dean divined its meaning and protested that the boy must go back with her to Thrushcross Grange, declaring there was nothing in the world less his than Hareton. Heathcliff responded with a threat: he had a fancy to try his hand at rearing a young one, and if Edgar Linton attempted to remove Hareton, he would supply the place of this with his own son, Linton. This hint was enough to bind their hands, and Edgar Linton, little interested at the commencement, spoke no more of interfering.

Consolidation of Power and Wealth

Following the takeover, Heathcliff's wealth grew year by year, though he remained close-handed, refusing to move to the finer Thrushcross Grange even when he could easily afford it. Ellen Dean observed that he had nobody knows what money, and every year it increases, yet he was so near and greedy that he would not miss the chance of getting a few hundreds more by letting the Grange to a good tenant. His avarice was strange, she reflected, for a man alone in the world. The takeover of Wuthering Heights was merely the first stage of a larger design. Heathcliff openly declared his intention to unite the two families' fortunes through marriage, informing Ellen Dean that his design was as honest as possible: that the two cousins, Catherine Linton and his son Linton Heathcliff, might fall in love and get married. He claimed to be acting generously to Edgar Linton, since his young chit had no expectations, and should she second his wishes she would be provided for at once as joint successor with Linton. When Ellen Dean objected that if Linton died, Catherine would be the heir, Heathcliff revealed there was no clause in the will to secure it so: his property would go to him, but to prevent disputes, he desired their union and was resolved to bring it about.

The Legal Stranglehold

The takeover extended beyond the estate to the personal property of the Linton family. When Edgar Linton lay dying, he divined that one of his enemy's purposes was to secure the personal property, as well as the estate, to his son, or rather to himself. Edgar felt his will had better be altered, and instead of leaving Catherine's fortune at her own disposal, he determined to put it in the hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her children after her, so that it could not fall to Heathcliff should Linton die. But the legal machinery worked against him. After Linton Heathcliff's death, Heathcliff went up to show Catherine the will, by which Linton had bequeathed the whole of his, and what had been her, moveable property to his father, the poor creature having been threatened or coaxed into that act during her week's absence when his uncle died. The lands, being a minor, Linton could not meddle with, yet Heathcliff claimed and kept them in his wife's right and his also, and Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, could not disturb his possession.

The Hollow Victory

The takeover, for all its completeness, proved ultimately hollow. In his final days, Heathcliff confessed he had not written his will yet and could not determine how to leave his property, wishing he could annihilate it from the face of the earth. He declared he had done no injustice and repented of nothing, claiming he was too happy and yet not happy enough, that his soul's bliss killed his body but did not satisfy itself. When he died, his eyes met Ellen Dean's so keen and fierce that she started, and his parted lips and sharp white teeth seemed to sneer at her attempts to close them. Joseph cried that the devil had harried off his soul, and then fell on his knees and returned thanks that the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their rights. The takeover that had seemed absolute unraveled with Heathcliff's death, as the property returned to Hareton, the most wronged of all, who sat by the corpse all night weeping in bitter earnest, pressing its hand and kissing the sarcastic, savage face that every one else shrank from contemplating. The economic conquest that had reduced Hareton to servitude could not survive its architect, and the ancient stock was restored to its rights, the crooked tree finally straightening in a different wind.