Heathcliff is one of the main people in the novel Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë. He is good-looking, proud, and often angry, with feelings that run very hot. He and Catherine Earnshaw love each other, but they cannot marry. He then sets out to hurt her family, because he believes they ruined his life. Readers have argued for a long time: is he a romantic hero, or is he cruel? The honest answer is that the book lets him be both, and that is why the name still carries weight. People sometimes call a dark, stormy, passionate man a Heathcliff, after the character.