Mr. Earnshaw and Hindley's father-son relationship

The relationship between Mr. Earnshaw and his son Hindley is the original wound from which the novel's central conflicts spring. Mr. Earnshaw, the stern but fundamentally kind patriarch of Wuthering Heights, unintentionally destroys his bond with his son by transferring his affection to a nameless street child he brings home from Liverpool. This displacement of paternal love creates in Hindley a deep, festering resentment that shapes his entire life and, through his subsequent cruelty, the lives of everyone around him.

Identity and Background

Mr. Earnshaw is the old master of Wuthering Heights, a man described as having a kind heart though he was rather severe sometimes. He is the father of Hindley and Catherine Earnshaw. Hindley, the elder child and the heir to the Heights, is a boy of fourteen when Heathcliff first arrives. Before this event, the relationship between father and son, while strict, appears to have been within the bounds of ordinary parental discipline. Mr. Earnshaw, before setting off on a journey to Liverpool, speaks to his son with a term of endearment, calling him "my bonny man" and offering to bring him a present, which Hindley chooses as a fiddle. This moment shows a father who, at this point, still engages with his son in a customary, affectionate manner.

The Introduction of Heathcliff and the Shift in Affection

The arrival of Heathcliff, a dirty, ragged, black-haired child found starving in the streets of Liverpool, marks the turning point. Mr. Earnshaw presents the boy as a "gift of God," though his wife is ready to fling the gipsy brat out of doors. From the very beginning, the old master takes to Heathcliff strangely, believing all he says and petting him up far above Catherine, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite. This favoritism is immediate and profound. Mr. Earnshaw buys the lads each a colt, and when Heathcliff's falls lame, he forces Hindley to exchange horses by threatening to reveal the thrashings he has received. Hindley, in a fury, calls Heathcliff a "beggarly interloper" and an "imp of Satan," and knocks him under the horse's feet. The father's partiality directly empowers Heathcliff and humiliates Hindley, breeding bad feeling in the house from the very start.

The Deepening Rift and Hindley's Resentment

As Mr. Earnshaw's health begins to fail, his irritability and his jealous protectiveness of Heathcliff intensify. He becomes painfully jealous lest a word should be spoken amiss to his favorite, and he seizes his stick to strike Hindley when the young man shows scorn towards Heathcliff in his presence. Hindley, in turn, learns to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent's affections and his own privileges. He grows bitter with brooding over these injuries. The curate eventually advises that Hindley be sent to college, a suggestion Mr. Earnshaw agrees to with a heavy spirit, saying "Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered." This banishment, while perhaps intended to bring peace, only confirms Hindley's sense of rejection and sets the stage for his vengeful return.

The Death of Mr. Earnshaw and Its Aftermath

Mr. Earnshaw dies quietly in his chair one October evening, with his children nearby. Catherine discovers his death and screams out, and she and Heathcliff set up a heart-breaking cry. Hindley, however, is absent, having been sent to college. He returns home for the funeral, and his return is the beginning of a new, tyrannical order. He brings a wife, Frances, and immediately begins to degrade Heathcliff, driving him from their company to the servants and depriving him of instruction. The father's death removes the only check on Hindley's accumulated hatred, and he proceeds to exact a brutal revenge on Heathcliff, treating him worse than a servant. This treatment, Nelly Dean reflects, was enough to make a fiend of a saint. The old master's indulgence of Heathcliff, intended as kindness, ultimately sows the seeds of a devastating cycle of cruelty and revenge that outlives him. Hindley's own son, Hareton, is later described by Nelly as having a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed, suggesting that the potential for good was lost in Hindley through the corruption of his early environment.

Thematic Significance

The father-son relationship between Mr. Earnshaw and Hindley is a powerful illustration of how parental favoritism can poison a child's character and set in motion a chain of destructive events. Mr. Earnshaw's love for Heathcliff, while genuine, is also a form of neglect towards his own son, creating a wound that never heals. Hindley's subsequent cruelty is not merely innate villainy but a direct, if twisted, response to his perceived dispossession. This dynamic establishes the novel's central theme of the cyclical nature of abuse and revenge, where the sins of the father are visited upon the son, and the son, in turn, becomes a tyrant himself.