The character of Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is a tormented man whose love, developed during his childhood and directed at Catherine, turns to a hate that is directed against all the world except Catherine. In the end, he takes that hatred with him to the grave. Heathcliff is a character who embodies opposites--love and hate, a lower social class origin though he is raised in an upper class atmosphere, and in his desire for revenge is a coming together of the passion of hatred and the calculation of rationality. His response throughout is based on the desire to belong while being called and treated as an outsider. His freedom is curtailed by his birth and lack of social position. In this society, a highly stratified society, Heathcliff has no place because he was found as a child and raised in a home not really his own. He is never allowed to forget his origins, and this colors his every action even after he becomes rich and returns to seek his revenge.
Heathcliff proceeds as he does because he is a highly emotional individual who is not allowed to express his feelings of love, so they turn to hate, a hate as strong as the love that preceded it. Once Catherine dies, this hate has no countervailing love to control it--the opposing forces cannot be reconciled. Heathcliff was always a brooding, internalized individual. His demeanor does not change greatly from childhood to adulthood, but the feelings inside him do change. As a child, though, he is impatient, which makes things particularly difficult for a child treated as an outsider and desirous of an immediate change in status. As an adult, he patiently waits for his revenge.
Catherine has strong feelings for Heathcliff and views him as a person rather than as a representative of another class. This sets her apart from the rest of her family, but in the end she marries in her own class just the same. This betrayal of Heathcliff is what determines ...