check, is what ultimately causes nearly every single character's downfall in Emily BrÖnte's Wuthering Heights.
             Before Heathcliff was even "established" as a member of the household, Cathy was "doomed" to a life of selfishness and easy irritation. Not long after Heathcliff is introduced to the family, Nelly says about Catherine:
             She had such a ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day: from the hour she came down stairs, till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief. Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going- singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wick slip she was- but she had the bonniest eye, and the sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish. (55)
             And when Mr. Earnshaw would scold her for her wild and care-free nature, she is said to have a:
             ...naughty delight to provoke [Mr. Earnshaw]; she was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her cold, saucy, look, and her ready words; turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most... (56)
             The physical description makes her sound angelic, but Nelly's character description makes her out to be somewhat demonic (for lack of better words). It comes off as if though her physical characteristics are able to easily outweigh her "personality flaws", which she knows and takes advantage of; one critic even goes so far as to say that Catherine is "fierce, faithless, and foolish" (Watson, 248). Mr. Earnshaw is the only one that manages to remain immune to her charms, constantly scolding her for her impish behaviour by taking her completely seriously. When Mr. Earnshaw tells her that he "cannot love thee; [that] thou'rt worse than thy brother" (BrÖnte, 56), instead of being by hurt t...