The sensual image of Margot Robbie as Cathy Earnshaw, the classic anti-heroine from Emily Brontë’s imagination, shook social media yesterday, February 14, Valentine’s Day. Her fingers on her lips, mixed with grass, already signal that director Emerald Fennell will highlight every sexual layer of Cathy and Heathcliff’s toxic, carnal, and tragic love. But there is something paradoxical here: releasing such an “anti-romantic” film on Valentine’s Day in 2026? Wouldn’t it be time to recognize Wuthering Heights as a sensational and universal work that it is, but not an example of a love story?

The debate is not new, I’m not trying to create controversy. Why does this dark and destructive story continue to be sold as a great romance? Since its publication in 1847, Emily Brontë’s novel has been surrounded by a romantic aura that, in reality, barely holds up when viewed as a whole.

Its most disturbing elements—obsession, revenge, possessiveness, and cruelty—are often repackaged in a light of overwhelming passion. This distortion has been reinforced over the years, both by film adaptations that have softened the narrative and by popular culture, which has transformed the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy into an ideal of tragic love. But how romantic can a story be in which love is less about genuine connection and more about mutual destruction?

The Myth of Fated Love
The relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff is often seen as an impossible, almost supernatural love, as suggested by Cathy’s famous line: “I am Heathcliff.” But this fusion of identities does not represent a healthy or altruistic love—it is a suffocating bond, based on the inability to exist separately. Cathy and Heathcliff find no happiness together or apart. They are souls bound, yes, but by something closer to ruin than redemption.

Furthermore, the idea of ​​predestination that surrounds the two ignores the fact that Cathy deliberately chooses to marry Edgar Linton, a kind and socially respectable man, knowing that doing so would destroy Heathcliff. Her decision is not only pragmatic; it is also a choice of status and comfort that challenges the notion of transcendental love.

Let us return to the sentence “I am Heathcliff.” From the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis, which describes psychic development as a process of individuation, in which the subject must differentiate himself from the other to form an autonomous ego, Cathy’s sentence reveals that her identity is not separate from Heathcliff, that she does not see herself as an independent being, but as an extension of him. This refers to what Freud called primary identification, an early stage of child development in which the child does not distinguish between himself or herself and the maternal or paternal figure.

By stating that she is Heathcliff, Cathy rejects the idea of ​​a separate self, as if both were a single entity. This type of fusion is problematic from a Freudian perspective, as it suggests a regression to a state where the ego has not yet healthily consolidated itself.

It is worth remembering that 111 years ago when Freud published Introduction to Narcissism, he spoke for the first time about two types of love: object love and narcissistic love. The first occurs when a person loves someone as a separate being, while the second occurs when the subject loves in the other that which reflects him or herself. Emily, who wrote her work 70 years before Freud, in 1847, had no “technical” notion, but she was brilliant in illustrating the existence of this type of relationship.

From a Freudian perspective, Cathy’s relationship with Heathcliff can be interpreted as narcissistic because she does not love him as a distinct individual, but as an extension of herself. Her statement is not just a declaration of love, but an affirmation of identity. In this sense, Heathcliff functions as a mirror for Cathy, reinforcing the idea that she sees him as part of her own self.

This also explains why Cathy chooses Edgar Linton as her husband. Despite declaring that she is Heathcliff, she chooses a marriage that provides her with status and stability. This suggests a conflict between her symbiotic identification with Heathcliff and her conscious desire for security. Freud also addressed the repetition compulsion, in which individuals unconsciously recreate patterns of suffering linked to past traumas.

If we consider that Cathy and Heathcliff grew up together under abusive and dysfunctional conditions, we can see their love not as a healthy passion, but as a repetition of a traumatic bond. Heathcliff represents to Cathy both the home and freedom of childhood and the pain of abandonment and rejection. Her desire to be Heathcliff may be rooted in an attempt to recover something lost or to heal a deep emotional wound.

Therefore, in the Freudian view, Cathy’s love for Heathcliff would not be mature and healthy, but rather a reflection of narcissistic fusion, trauma, and repetition compulsion. Her phrase “I am Heathcliff” expresses not only an intense feeling but a collapse of boundaries between the self and the other—a symptom of a bond that is less romantic and more pathological.

Thus, far from being an ideal declaration of love, this phrase reveals a relationship marked by emotional dependence and the loss of one’s own identity, which helps to reinforce why Wuthering Heights should not be interpreted as a conventional novel, but rather as a psychological study of the darkest passions.

Heathcliff: The Lover or the Torturer?

Another recurring distortion is the image of Heathcliff as the archetype of the “tortured man” who loves with such intensity that it borders on madness. Although his origin story—a rejected, humiliated, and abused orphan—generates empathy, he grows up to be a brutal man who terrorizes not only those who wronged him but also the innocent.

Throughout the book, Heathcliff marries Isabella Linton solely to hurt Edgar, subjecting her to psychological and physical abuse. He also treats his own son, Linton, as a revenge plot, manipulating him into marrying Cathy Linton only to secure his inheritance. And he obsessively haunts Cathy’s memory, refusing to move on even decades after her death.

Heathcliff’s passion is overwhelming, but not redemptive. He is not a tragic lover in the classic sense, but rather a man consumed by resentment and hatred, willing to destroy everything around him to ease his pain.

The Adaptations That Rewrote History
Much of the idealization of Wuthering Heights comes from the film adaptations, which often eliminate the darker aspects of the plot. The 1939 film, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, for example, cuts out the entire second generation of characters and focuses only on the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff, ending before the spiral of revenge in which Heathcliff’s evil is indefensible.

Other versions soften Heathcliff, turning him into a long-suffering lover, instead of the cruel man that Emily Brontë conceived. They even ignore Cathy’s coldness and evil, manipulative, vengeful, and downright cruel. This approach transforms the tragedy of the story into an intense romance but distorts its original essence.

Valentine’s Day Release: Irony or Strategy?
The fact that the new adaptation will be released on Valentine’s Day 2026 only reinforces how far the perception of the book has diverged from its reality. Choosing this date suggests that the story is still seen as one of the great romantic narratives in literature, when in fact it should be recognized for its dark and visceral nature.

Perhaps what fascinates the public is not the love between Cathy and Heathcliff, but rather its destructive intensity. There is something irresistible about stories where love mixes with tragedy, where obsession replaces affection, and where the characters find no peace in life or in death.

But isn’t it time to stop romanticizing pain?

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