He struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies and yielded with poignant though silent regret: but, he yielded completely; and there was no prevailing on him to take a step in the way of moving upward, when he found he must necessarily sink beneath his former level. Then personal appearance sympathized with mental deterioration; he acquired a slouching gait, and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of social moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintances (60).

What’s the point of view?

What does the comment say about the speaker?

How is Heathcliff interpreted by the speaker?

How does this add to the complexity of the characterization of Heathcliff?

Are there any contradictions or tensions in the passage?

Why is this passage so important?

Theses The passage is about Heathcliff. The passage is from the point of view of Nelly

Dean. The passage comes early in the novel. The passage is important because it

establishes the birth of Heathcliff’s adult consciousness and gives insight into his perverse and brutal nature.

Topic sentences Heathcliff begins to slouch. Heathcliff struggles to maintain a sort of

equality with Catherine. The passage provides an explanation for

Heathcliff’s brutal nature. It seems to derive from his sense of inferiority as a young man and is a sort of compensation for what he lacks.

In the passage, Bronte emphasizes the fundamental perversity of the young Heathcliff’s behavior. He takes pride in his very brutishness.

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

At one point in the poem, nature is represented in a erotic way. The speaker says, …. The image also implies a kind of unity, a bringing together of two different forms of nature into an undifferentiated oneness.

There is a big shift in line …., which reflects the fact that this is a Petrarchan sonnet.