Jane Eyre is a character with whom it is very easy to identify, particularly for many women. First as the truth telling child, then as a character who is divided between insecurity and knowing her own worth. Like some of Charlotte's letters, indignation and need seem to pour from her pen and leap from the page, and she articulates what so many of us feel. In WH, it's almost as difficult to identify a favourite character as it is to identify a hero - if there is one. Emily seems a little ambiguous about Hareton and Linton. Heathcliff and Cathy haunt the reader, much as they are supposed to walk the earth. Lines they speak come back to mind at the oddest times. Like them? Yes, even in spite of conventional morality. They die for each other, we can forgive them for living for each other. And who doesn't like and respond to the older Cathy, with all her capriciousness, over her daughter? I'm a romanticist at heart, and like them I find Healthcliff akin to Milton's Satan - even in spite of his pettiness, he is Byronically, majestically, dark.

I can see that there is a lot to WH, it is a dark book. I liked Heathcliff as a child; especially after the Earnshaw's father died. I guess I like some characters because i feel sorry for them (though not Linton, he complains way too much). I know that Heathcliff was in love with Catherine, but that doesn't mean that he has to torment his family, and himself too. But Hareton was mistreated as a child also, but he still had some good left in him, though maybe he wasn't as interesting as Heathcliff and Catherine. But Emily was a great writer; the poetic descriptions were great.