Where There Is Oppression, There Is Resistance—An Analysis of the Motives of Heathcliff’s Revenge

Wuthering Heights is one of the most successful novels in the world. Heathcliff’s crazy revenge even gains lots of attention. From the perspective of psychology, especially Abraham H. Maslow’s motivation theory, this paper studies the motives of Heathcliff’s revenge. It finds out that the motives of Heathcliff’s revenge were attributed to the dissatisfaction of the five basic needs of human beings, especially the safety needs, the esteem needs and the self-actualization needs. The revenge was, in fact, the instinctive resistance to the oppression. Key words: Wuthering Heights; Motivation; Oppression; Resistance; Heathcliff’s revenge