Some themes in Wuthering Heights

Some of the issues in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights": race. The little boy that Earnshaw brings back, supposedly, from Liverpool, (Heathcliff) is constantly described as - and sees himself as - darker, foreign-looking, sometimes called a Gypsy. There's a sense throughout the first half of the novel that relations with him, in particular amorous and sexual relations are forbidden because he's not of anglo stock. Class: Hindley makes a big point of treating Heathcliff like a servant, in part as a way of protecting his own claim to father's affections and later to the estate, but also as a way of building a demarcation, another boundary that prevents Catherine or any others of their "class" from engaging with Heathcliff as an equal. Reminds me to a degree of As You Like It: the younger brother treated like a servant, and of course he's angry about that not because servants are treated badly but because he believes he deserves better. Incest: most interesting. I'm sure a million people have commented on this - and the question of how much Bronte intended this theme, how much she even know she was conveying this theme. But Earnshaw's cover story - that he was going to Liverpool - a 60-mile walk as he put it - on business, and lo and behold he returns with a little child, an urchin he picked up on the street and took home out of pity - is entirely preposterous. He obviously is bringing home a child of his own. (It's possible he didn't even go to Liverpool: he doesn't bring back any of the promised gifts, and it's absurd to imagine him carrying this child with him for 60 miles on foot.) We suspect his wife knows and understands this - it's why she does a year or so after Heathcliff joins the family. No one ever raises this issue, but it may be a 3rd reason why Hindley builds such barriers between Heathcliff and Catherine. Speaking of Shakespeare, there are obvious echoes of The Tempest in WH, with Heathcliff cast as Caliban, bestial and evil but through no fault of his own, mostly through suffering a life of mistretment, and Catherine like Miranda, opening up in surprise to the beauty of the life around her - brave new world - at least up to a point. It's obvious to any reader that, in Linton, she is making a terrible and tragic choice.