"'Wuthering Heights'": Here's How The Characters Are Different To The Novel, And What Emerald Fennell Had To Say About The Changes
by Hanifah Rahman · BuzzFeedAfter months of anticipation, Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, is finally here.
Ever since the trailer dropped last year, fans of the classic novel (first published in 1847( have been very curious to see just how true to the story the Saltburn directors' retelling would be. While the novel’s original themes and intensity shine through, it’s safe to say “Wuthering Heights” has many differences from its source material – from casting to costume – with some of the biggest changes being in the characters.
So, here are some of the biggest character changes made in “Wuthering Heights” and what Emerald Fennell had to tell us about the motivations behind her creative choices.
The novel’s main antagonist, Hindley Earnshaw, has been completely removed
In the original story, Catherine’s older brother’s contempt and growing vengeance for Heathcliff are major factors in the tragic events that impact all the characters. On the surface, it may seem like a rogue choice to get rid of the story’s main villain, but Emerald explained to us why she made such a bold decision, and it makes a lot of sense.
Describing Hindley as “extremely violent, jealous, spiteful”, Emerald told us that she’s always viewed him as more of a “narrative tool” than a multifaceted, relatable character. “He's one of the only characters that I feel that Brontë doesn't really extend any grace to. I always find that quite difficult when you're looking at making a kind of drama. You can have an outright villain in a novel. You can have somebody who tries to throw a baby off a bannister.” She joked, before going on to share that she's always looking to explore tension in characters that viewers still have sympathy for, no matter how reprehensible they are. While her choice has got the literature fans up in arms, getting rid of Hindley leaves room for other changes that make “Wuthering Heights” feel like a fresh take on the familiar story, which also gives the film room to explore the depths of other characters.
In the absence of the original villain, Mr Earnshaw becomes a much more complicated character
Brontë doesn’t really go into detail about what compelled Mr Earnshaw to bring Heathcliff home, or why he likes and treats him so much better than his own son. In “Wuthering Heights,” Mr Earnshaw’s (Martin Clunes) behaviour is unpredictable and erratic from the onset, and both Heathcliff and Catherine are victims of his unexpected mood swings and outbursts. Emerald’s extracted key elements of Hindley’s character and used them to remould Mr Earnshaw into a kind of dad that could somewhat explain why Heathcliff and Cathy are the people they are: “a sort of father character who was at once loving, charismatic, generous, and on the other side, cruel, malevolent, capricious. You know, all the things that Cathy is too.”
The changes to the Earnshaws shape the entire dynamic of everyone who lives in the Wuthering Heights household
“Wuthering Heights” spans a couple of decades, but not as many as the original novel – we don’t meet any Linton or Earnshaw descendants in this take. Despite this, Emerald’s retelling still explores the impacts of generational trauma, obsession, and the cruel cycle of revenge.” It was about looking at what behaviour they've learned,” Emerald shared. “How they've learned to manage things, how they've survived up to a point.”
The complicated dynamic between Nelly and Cathy is also shaped by Hindley’s absence: Emerald told us she always wanted to make Nelly more of an older sister figure to Cathy. As a result, Heathcliff’s arrival completely changes the nature of their bond, adding more layers to Nelly’s judgment, meddling, and general disdain for Heathcliff: “I think we all can relate to that person. When you're the sensible one, you're the one who can see that something is a terrible idea.”
We’re told the story from a different lens than the novel, which just makes the tragedy all the more emotional
Joseph Lockwood and his narration have been completely removed, and I’m sure we all agree with Emerald that no one’s missing him. Instead of the story unfolding through Nelly’s memory recollection, she’s part of the story, and the impact of her actions is glaring. "Nelly claims, like all good novel narrators, to be sort of an innocent bystander, and yet she seems to affect every single thing that happens in the book,” Emerald observed. Despite this, she made it clear that she doesn’t consider Nelly as the story’s villain, but rather a deeply complex character. “I mean, there's villainous behaviour,” she admitted, “But the thing that's so brilliant about Brontë is she's radically amoral and undidactic, particularly for the time that she was writing. [I wanted to give Nelly] that moment of grace at the end when she realises she's been responsible.”