Heathcliff is a highly controversial character in Emily Bront 's canon Wuthering Heights. He is depicted as an incredi ble conglomeration of enigmas and simplicity, aloofness and affinity, ferocity and vulnerability, inhumanity and heroicity, a man who appears more silent and preoccupied than talkative and carefree, inaudible and incalculable in both words and thoughts. The author of this paper considers that there is much left to be read and contemplate on in Heathcliff's silence and thus make a tempa tive research into Heathcliff's silence by discerning its manifestations and probing its causes, in order to resonate with the inner touch of this complicated soul and relate his silence with the spirit that Emily Bront wished to deliver through Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff's silence manifests as muteness, elusion and colloquial or physical violence. In his whole life, Heathcliff inter mittently experiences the self-chosen silence and the forced silence. He chooses to be silence out of self-protection and the infe riority complex; he considers silence as a token of masculinity. And the ruthless force from outside also compels him into a periph eralized situation where he has to keep silent and struggles against the torture and torment alone.
展开▼
