Nature vs. Nurture in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights".

The story of Heathcliff, the sadistic protagonist of Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" is so upset that Edgar Linton does not want his lovely daughter, Cathy, to hear it. Heathcliff and Cathy, two prominent characters in the novel, interact in the second half of the novel. Heathcliff's passages reveal that the tortured character comes about from a childhood without the care of parents (33) while Cathy's goodness (164) reflects her being raised by a loving father. The different …

…of a family with a tendency to be selfish and greedy. This idea can be countered, though, because Heathcliff was said to have "bore his degradation pretty well at first", a quality that not many natural tyrants can boast of. Also, the fact that Cathy is the daughter of Catherine and yet shows few of the violent characteristics of her mother tells us that genes play no, or very little, role in how she behaves.