Heathcliff ‘may have been black'

Telegraph

07-04-2025

The Brontë museum has suggested that the character of Heathcliff may have been black.
Heathcliff features as the brooding anti-hero in Wuthering Heights, a tale of passion which shocked the Victorian public when it was published in 1847.
Emily Brontë described him as darker than other characters in the novel but not explicitly black, with comparisons to a 'dark-skinned gypsy' or a 'Lascar', a south Asian sailor.
However, Heathcliff is also described as 'pale' at times and possibly 'Spanish'.
On screen, the character has been played principally by white actors, including Laurence Olivier in 1939, but in 2011 the roles of the old and young Heathcliff went to black British performers James Howson and Solomon Glave.
The debate over ethnicity of the character has reignited following the decision to cast white actor Jacob Elordi in the role for an upcoming film.
The Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, once the Yorkshire home of Emily, Anne and Charlotte Brontë and now a museum dedicated to the authors, has set out the case for Heathcliff being a man of 'black African descent'.
Heathcliff 'may have been inspired by former slave'
The argument has been advanced by the Brontë Society, which controls the parsonage museum, following a commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Information on its website suggests that Heathcliff may have been inspired by a black abolitionist and former slave.
This states that while the character's ethnicity remains a mystery, there are clues 'linking him to the transatlantic slave trade'.
A resource on the official parsonage website, titled Black History, states: 'The fact that Heathcliff is found in Liverpool, described as an orphan with no 'owner' or 'belonging' to anybody, opens up the possibility that Heathcliff could have black African descent, having been brought to Liverpool through the slave trade.'
It also adds that Brontë may have based Heathcliff's appearance on the Frederick Douglass, the black American abolitionist .
Douglass was a renowned figure at the time the novel was written, the resource states.
To further support the idea, parallels are drawn between Heathcliff's brutal upbringing in the eponymous home, Wuthering Heights, and the treatment of slaves.
It states: 'This forced endurance of misery and beatings is an experience that can be compared to that of enslaved people across the colonies… Heathcliff is 'flogged' like an enslaved person by Hindley and the entire family contributes to this prejudice.'
The society added that 'it's interesting that Emily chose to set Wuthering Heights in a time when the transatlantic slave trade was a large part of the economy in Britain'.
The society advanced the argument for a black Heathcliff following controversy over an upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation, written and produced by Emerald Fennell, which will star Margot Robbie alongside Elordi as Heathcliff's soulmate, Catherine Earnshaw.
The pair are childhood friends denied a life together in the novel, which presents Heathcliff as a kind of supernatural and devilish being.
The casting of Elordi was criticised by many on social media who accused the film of 'whitewashing' the story.
The parsonage's intervention in the debate over Heathcliff's race comes ahead of a planned annual conference, set for autumn, that will address how the Brontë sisters are linked to 'Empire and Western colonialism'.
Research will tackle issues including 'racialisation' and 'whiteness' in the works of the literary family.
The Brontë Society said that the theme was chosen at a time when 'continued efforts to decolonise the curriculum and museums are being made'.
The links to the colonial world in the works of the Brontës include Heathcliff's debated race, and the character of Bertha Mason, who hails from Jamaica, in Charlotte's 1847 novel Jane Eyre.
The conference will also debate the character Quashia Quamina, a black figure who featured in the imaginary world of Angria, which Charlotte devised.
The Brontë Society board is led by book influencer Lucy Powrie, who was 25 when she was appointed its youngest chairman. The Brontë Parsonage Museum itself is directed by Rebecca Yorke.
The society's commitment to inclusion has come under scrutiny in the past.
In 2024, the Brontë sisters were named in an LGBT Pride campaign because they wrote under pen names.
Pride Month material published by the Brontë Society discussed 'the Brontës and gender identity' because of their 'androgynous' alter-egos.
Charlotte published her works under the name Currer, Emily under the moniker Ellis, while Anne adopted the name Acton. All three went by the same surname of Bell.
During their lifetimes, it was common for female writers to adopt male pseudonyms when writing and publishing their works in order to be taken seriously by the establishment.