Hareton Earnshaw
'Strong in limb and dirty in garb...'
We are introduced to Hareton Earnshaw in Volume I: Chapter II.
Hareton is the only child of Hindley Earnshaw, of Wuthering Heights.
Hareton, born in June 1778, is the nephew of Catherine Earnshaw.
Ellen “Nelly” Dean—housekeeper and nursemaid to baby Hareton—reunited with him in his young adulthood, describes him in Volume II: Chapter IV:
[He] was a well-made, athletic youth, good-looking in features, and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily occupations of working on the farm, and lounging among the moors after rabbits and game. Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed. Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable circumstances.
Hareton shares little in common with his father—neither looks nor disposition—but similarly to Hindley, the son retains a soft spot in Nelly Dean’s heart.
The younger Earnshaw earns the affection of others—and will likely gain readers’, too.
As we read Wuthering Heights we learn Hareton, “was never taught to read or write; never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single precept against vice.”
The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen. —Lockwood
Hareton may be a rustic…but by the novel’s end, I am certain you’ll learn to love him.1