Is Heathcliff White?

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Following criticism about casting Jacob Elordi, who is of Basque Australian descent, as Heathcliff in the recent Wuthering Heights premiere in Los Angeles, director Emerald Fennell explained her decision. She seemed to anticipate concerns about how closely her film would follow the original novel, perhaps by subtly distancing the title with quotation marks. Fennell stated that because readers have such strong personal connections to the book, a film adaptation can only truly reflect the director’s own vision of the story.

When the director, Fennell, talked about how they were envisioning Heathcliff, it really struck a nerve with book lovers like me! Ever since Jacob Elordi was cast, we’ve been debating it online. The book actually describes Heathcliff early on as looking like a “dark-skinned gypsy,” so the idea of ignoring that detail feels…wrong, especially now. Honestly, so many of us Wuthering Heights fans have strong feelings about who Heathcliff really is. Some think he’s Black, others believe he’s Romani, and a lot of people even suggest he could be Irish. It’s become a huge discussion!

It wouldn’t be the first time Heathcliff’s appearance has been altered for the screen. Historically, actors like Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, and Ralph Fiennes have portrayed him as a conventionally attractive white man. Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation was the first in English to cast a Black actor, James Howson (who is biracial), as the adult Heathcliff. While Fennell’s adaptation includes actors of color in roles – like Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) and Nelly Dean (Hong Chau) – that were traditionally played by white actors in the novel, her two main leads remain white. This suggests she’s either taking a creative, ‘Bridgerton’-style approach to casting without focusing on race, or intentionally changing the established identities of these characters, despite the importance of race in the original story.

As a huge film buff, I’ve noticed everyone’s obsessing over Heathcliff’s background in ‘Wuthering Heights,’ and it’s funny because people who really know Victorian literature – the scholars and professors – just shrug. They tell you this debate has been going on for almost a hundred years! If they’ve been arguing about it for so long, it’s pretty clear there isn’t one simple answer. So, honestly, I wonder why we’re still getting so worked up about it?

What the Text Says

Heathcliff’s story begins when Mr. Earnshaw, father to Cathy and Hindley, returns from a trip to Liverpool with a young, neglected boy. He found the child, who spoke an unintelligible language, abandoned and starving on the streets. Though his wife wanted to reject the boy, calling him a “gypsy brat,” Mr. Earnshaw took a liking to him and named him Heathcliff after their deceased son, quickly becoming his favorite.

Throughout the novel, Heathcliff’s appearance is described in many ways, often comparing him to someone foreign or of mixed heritage. He’s likened to the son of a gypsy, a sailor from far away, or even someone touched by darkness. People also note his skin isn’t quite Black, and his face can drain of color when he’s scared. As a young teen, Heathcliff’s bond with Cathy is tested when they meet the wealthy Linton family, who have fairer skin and live nearby. Cathy spends time recovering from an injury at their home, and Heathcliff notices her growing attraction to Edgar Linton. He even confesses to wishing he had Edgar’s good looks. In an attempt to comfort him, their servant Nelly Dean playfully suggests Heathcliff might be the son of royalty, imagining his father as the Emperor of China and his mother an Indian queen.

When Cathy returns from visiting the Lintons, she acts more refined and starts to focus on Heathcliff’s rough appearance, even worrying about him dirtying her clothes. This raises the question of whether his perceived “darkness” is symbolic. Interestingly, Brontë often uses darkness to represent Heathcliff’s intense emotions and gloomy expression, making it difficult to tell when she’s describing his mood versus his actual appearance. After Cathy’s death, Heathcliff is completely devastated, and his grief is clearly visible in his increasingly dark and somber features.

In Emily Brontë’s novel, the characters of Heathcliff, the Earnshaws, and the Lintons represent different points on a scale of social status and inner darkness. The Earnshaws are an older, darker-haired family, and both Catherine and Heathcliff eventually marry into it. However, Heathcliff always feels like an outsider, despite undergoing a significant change. After being away for three years, he returns with newfound wealth and appears almost like a gentleman. As described in the novel, he still possesses a wildness, but it’s now controlled: “He looked less rough, but still serious and imposing.” He then marries the infatuated Isabella Linton, and their son inherits his mother’s blonde hair. Heathcliff, looking at his son, gruffly asks, “Where do I see myself in you?” and notes with a hint of pride, “At least you don’t have entirely fair skin.”

What the Scholars Say

According to Oxford English professor Sally Shuttleworth, the debate about Heathcliff’s possible African ancestry actually goes back quite a while. It first appeared in academic circles in the 1950s, and gained more attention with the rise of postcolonial studies in the 1980s and 90s. Scholars point out that the Brontë sisters lived relatively close to Liverpool, a major port involved in the slave trade, and that this geographical connection is hard to ignore when considering the setting of Wuthering Heights.

Shuttleworth points out that the idea of Heathcliff being Black is now widely accepted without much critical thought. This belief has been fueled by the enduring impact of Arnold’s film and, more recently, Caryl Phillips’s 2015 novel, which portrays Heathcliff as the son of Mr. Earnshaw and a Black woman formerly enslaved from the West Indies. However, Corinne Fowler, a professor at the University of Leicester, notes that the name “Heathcliff” functions as both a first and last name – a common practice in plantation records. Without a surname, someone couldn’t claim inheritance. This raises a question: if Heathcliff wasn’t the result of an affair, but an enslaved child, would taking him in be considered theft? According to the novel, Mr. Earnshaw specifically asked about the child’s owner, suggesting he worried about stealing someone else’s servant or property. Fowler also points to evidence within the text – the suggestion that Heathcliff was already accustomed to harsh treatment – to support the idea that he was a formerly enslaved child who had fallen into poverty.

Recently, Fowler helped create the exhibition “The Colonial Brontës” at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which offers fresh insights into a long-standing discussion. Fowler and her team researched the materials the young Brontë siblings would have encountered – things like missionary writings, newspapers, and colonial news – to understand how these influenced their early writing and later novels. As children, the Brontës created a detailed imaginary world called the Glass Town Federation, and Fowler believes this early work foreshadowed their mature themes. Fowler explains that the character of Heathcliff was likely inspired by a figure Charlotte Brontë created named Quashia Quamina, a composite character drawing on colonial influences. Specifically, Quamina combines elements of a boy whose father was an Indian ruler orphaned by conflicts with the East India Company, and the son of an Ashanti warrior.

As a film and literature enthusiast, I’ve always been fascinated by the question of Heathcliff’s racial identity in Wuthering Heights. Recent historical research suggests it’s entirely plausible he was intended to be a person of color. Apparently, there were quite a few people of African descent living in Yorkshire during Emily Brontë’s time – farm workers, servants, even children working in mills. While there’s no proof Brontë personally knew them, she almost certainly would have read about them in newspapers or heard stories. For example, there was a report about a man who escaped a slave-owning family near her school. Plus, 1846, the year she finished the book, was a time of huge debate around abolition, and Frederick Douglass even gave a speech in Liverpool. It all paints a picture where a non-white Heathcliff wouldn’t have been out of step with the world Brontë inhabited.

Catherine Robson, a scholar of Victorian literature, suggests a possible explanation for the idea that Rochester should be of African descent: she believes it stems from Charlotte Brontë’s other novel, Jane Eyre. In Jane Eyre, Bertha Rochester is established as being born in Jamaica. This connection between Bertha’s background and Rochester’s potential heritage has been explored by numerous writers, including postcolonial scholar Gayatri Spivak and author Jean Rhys, who wrote Wide Sargasso Sea.

As a big fan of Wuthering Heights, I’ve always been fascinated by Heathcliff’s origins, and there’s a really interesting theory out there. Some scholars believe he might have been intended to be Irish. Emily Brontë started writing the novel in 1845, right when her brother Branwell got back from Liverpool. This was at the very start of the Irish famine, meaning Branwell likely would have seen Irish immigrants coming to England looking for work. It makes you wonder if that influenced her portrayal of Heathcliff! Winifred Gérin, in her biography of Emily, pointed out how the Illustrated London News depicted these immigrants – basically as starving, ragged figures with wild, dark hair. That imagery definitely lines up with how we picture Heathcliff. And apparently, back then, the Irish were sometimes associated with manual labor – things like digging – which could explain why Heathcliff is often described as being ‘dark’ in more than just appearance. It’s a compelling idea, and adds another layer to the story for me.

Growing up, Branwell and his siblings were likely very aware of how Irish people were seen and treated. Their father, Patrick Brontë (born Brunty), was Irish but deliberately changed his name and got an education to distance himself from his Irish identity, according to scholar Elsie Michie, who has studied racism against the Irish in the Victorian era. Scholar Terry Eagleton noted that Patrick seemed to accept and even promote the common English stereotype of the unreliable Irishman. During this time of the British Empire, people were increasingly categorized by race, and the Irish were often seen as different—and darker—than the British. This prejudice would have extended to groups like Irish Travellers and Romani people, who might have been unfairly grouped with the Irish.

One important aspect of the book we haven’t touched on is its unusual narration. While Wuthering Heights is technically told by Mr. Lockwood, an outsider, most of the story comes from the housekeeper, Nelly, who recounts events spanning two generations, with occasional letters included. According to Shuttleworth, this complex narrative structure is often overlooked when discussing Heathcliff, as everything we hear is filtered through narrators with their own biases. Nelly, for instance, was raised almost as a sister to the Earnshaws and grieved the death of Heathcliff’s enemy, Hindley, as if he were family. This makes it unlikely she would support the enigmatic and often cruel Heathcliff.

As a huge fan of Wuthering Heights, I’ve always been struck by how much of an outsider Heathcliff is. What really gets me thinking is what Professor Robson pointed out – the story is set in a pretty uniform community, but Liverpool, as a port, was always full of newcomers. Brontë seems really interested in exploring what makes people similar and different, and that’s why Cathy’s famous line – ‘I am Heathcliff’ – is so powerful. For years, people have interpreted that through the lens of social class, arguing that Heathcliff and Cathy were both seen as inferior because they didn’t have any property or wealth. Honestly, I’m just relieved that their deep connection, which eventually becomes romantic, isn’t because they’re secretly related! That would really complicate things.

The Verdict

Was Heathcliff a white man? Probably not, if we consider the standards of the Victorian era – and likely not by today’s standards either. Was he Black? It’s possible, based on historical context and clues within the story, but it’s not definitively stated.

Everyone I talked to who studies this topic agreed that there’s no way to definitively say one interpretation of the story is correct over another. They are planning to watch the movie, but they’re also concerned about how it will be handled. According to Robson, Emerald Fennell, based on her previous work with Saltburn, doesn’t seem to have a particularly nuanced understanding of history or social class, which is what’s causing some worry. However, they acknowledge that this film ultimately represents Fennell’s own creative vision.

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2026-02-11 00:57