Surely there were umpteen urchins from which he could have chosen, so in picking Heathcliff, he must have had a reason, such as fathering an illegitimate child with some random woman.

I had a professor with a similar theory, if I recall correctly.

I think this may be a common reading of the (sub)text, as I remember this discussion happening in a class when I was in college as well (circa 1986).

And Heathcliff is, in class terms, the equivalent of some roughneck Texas cowboy.

Colin Farrell? Although Sean Bean... hoo... def. brilliant.

I could see either Rufus Sewell or James Purefoy doing Heathcliff pretty well.

And maybe Eva Green as Cathy, too.

Of course, all this talk of Wuthering Heights always brings this to mind (about a minute in, it will make sense if you've not seen it before): [link]

Now, I don't think that Heathcliff and Cathy being step-siblings is textually supported, but if it were true, it's an extra layer of both creepy AND crazy.

I think it's very plausible - I remember we talked about that when I was studying it. I wouldn't hazard a guess at whether Bronte was consciously implying that he's a by-blow, but it's very logical within the text, because why the hell else does their father bring him home? Although it's kind of a fairytale beginning, in all its horror and poetry. (I'm also intrigued by the suggestion that Heathcliff is biracial - he's consistently described as swarthy etc, and he's brought back from a bustling sea-port. Would make for an awesome bit of non-Sean-Bean casting.)

And, yes, that whole half-siblings thing - Wincest, people. Wincest. (Which is to say - the passionate intensity of the relationship between the brothers Winchester, which I do not read as UST myself, mirrors the passionate intensity of the Heathcliff/Cathy relationship. Including the whole digging-uu-the-grave, come-back-and-haunt-me craziness. And, really, I don't know that you have to read Heathcliff/Cathy as lovers, unconsumated or otherwise, or their relationship as sexual - it's just THAT FUCKING INTENSE. And the reason that so many slashers have embraced the Wincest thing is very closely akin to the reason that the majority of the readers of Wuthering Heights read it as a heterosexual romance. But I think that the kick of that relationship ISN'T rooted in UST - it's the intense, obsessive, passionate relationship that those two form in childhood, just them against the world. Sexual desire is almost incidental - it's just the easy shorthand for pigeonholing the relationship.

I should mention I haven't seen the Fiennes/Binoche version of Wuthering Heights, so my suggestion of Fiennes as appropriate for Heathcliff is based solely of my impression of him from other roles.

Clips of the Fiennes/Binoche version. My laptop is pulling some weird shit where it won't let me watch any of them, so I can't point you at anything particularly typical, but - yeah, no. It's all rather excruciatingly Masterpiece Theatre, whereas it needs to be much more I-will-fuck-your-shit-up.

Fay's brains are, as always, spicy.

Isn't it a typical adolescent female thing, the desire for something powerful tamed by your hand? I think I read somewhere that that is the basis of the horse-love thing.

Isn't it a typical adolescent female thing, the desire for something powerful tamed by your hand?

It's what people claim is the attraction for the Twilight phenomena and why Bella is left as such a blank slate-- so that the reader can presumably insert herself into the text and vicariously experience the thrill of the mere human girl taming the 108-year-old manic-depressive virgin vampire with stalking issuesthe powerful, inhumanly beautiful immortal.

Whereas in Wuthering Heights, Bella is Isabella, and when she makes the mistake of getting all googly eyed over the brooding hottie who treats her cruelly and then starts being all romantic, he kills her puppy, marries her, rapes her, beats her, all in order to father a child and get his hands on her brother's land.

All of which is a much better lesson for the Twilight fangirls, imho.

wrod. And I thought the whole thing was very hot the first time I read it; the next, a few years later, was very different. And then, I took a Bronte course. I kind of wish I could read it with the same love, but it's better not to have the wrong impression about this stuff, right? And it's still a great book and I'm still mad at Stephenie Meyer for taking time on her website to write why it "sucks"(Especially, since without Bronte she'd be selling Avon or something. Argh!!