Examples of Evil in Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch, and Madame Bovary

Evil has always been an evolving concept in the mind of man. From the original religious texts of the devil or Shaitan, or Lucifer as a single demon or creature that actually existed, to the modern ideas of evil existing not as an outside force but instead as something that lives within our hearts.
Each of these three tales gives an example of evil in the new more modern sense, with characters that are seen, not as heartless sociopaths driven by a desire to hurt everyone around them, but people with human weaknesses that made them the way they are. It is this difference that makes the characters so different from the ideas of villains before them.
The story “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte is the tale of Heathcliff an orphan brought to live at Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw. Heathcliff falls into an intense, unshakeable love with Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine, but because of her desire for social prominence, Catherine marries Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff. After Mr. Earnshaw dies, his resentful son Hindley abuses Heathcliff and treats him as a servant. Heathcliff’s humiliation and misery prompt him to spend most of the rest of his life seeking revenge on Hindley, his beloved Catherine, and their respective children (Hareton and young Catherine).
A powerful, fierce, and often cruel man, Heathcliff acquires a fortune and uses his extraordinary powers of will to acquire both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, the estate of Edgar Linton. While Heatcliff is by no means a heroic man, he is in fact the protagonist of the story despite his cruel nature. However it is shown that he is not cruel simply because he is evil, but rather because of the way he was treated which turned him into the man he became for better and for ill. As the question states, though he is at times comparable to “Satan” one can understand the motives behind his character if not condone them.
The character of similar nature in Middlemarch by George Eliot is a man called Nicholas Bulstrode. Though due to the nature of the book there is no single protagonist he is still one of the novels central characters. A wealthy banker married to Walter Vincy's sister. Bulstrode professes to be a deeply religious Evangelical Protestant, but he has a dark past: he made his fortune as a pawnbroker selling stolen goods. He married Will Ladislaw's grandmother after her first husband died.
Her daughter had run away years before, and she insisted that Bulstrode find her daughter before she re-married, because she wanted to leave her wealth to her only surviving child. Bulstrode located the daughter and her child, Will Ladislaw, but he kept her existence a secret. He bribed the man he hired to find her, John Raffles, to keep quiet. John Raffles blackmails him with this information. When Raffles becomes ill, Bulstrode cares for him. However, he disobeys Lydgate's medical advice, and Raffles dies as a result. When the scandal about his past and the circumstances of Raffles's death become known, Bulstrode leaves Middlemarch in shame. He purchases Stone Court from Joshua Rigg Featherstone.
Here is another example of a main character with what could be called “evil” motives. Here is a man who bribed and blackmailed and cheated to get where he is, but despite that we do not find the character despicable. Rather the characters portrayal is intended for the reader to sympathize with him and show him a small measure of pity for the things he did because in essence he feels guilt for his actions. This is similar to the character Heathcliff as both men do despicable acts yet are no viewed in a despicable light.
A third character who acts as a sort of protagonist in “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert is the Madame Emma Bovary. A country girl educated in a convent and married to Charles Bovary at a young age, she harbors idealistic romantic illusions, covets sophistication, sensuality, and passion, and lapses into fits of extreme boredom and depression when her life fails to match the sentimental novels she treasures. She has a daughter, Berthe, but lacks maternal instincts and is often annoyed with the child.
Occasionally, guilt or a memory of her simple childhood causes her to repent, and she becomes devoutly religious and dedicates herself to her husband and child. Such fits of conscience are short-lived. Emma’s desire for passion and pleasure leads her into extramarital affairs with Rodolphe and Leon. In addition, she runs up enormous debts against her husband’s property and commits suicide when she realizes she will be unable to repay them.
Here is another correlating example of title characters who behave in a manner that would generally be considered by another style of writing evil. She is an altogether weak and selfish woman who’s only redeeming feature is the fits of guilt that come upon her. However she like the other two is a character the reader finds sympathy for as he she is simply a victim of her own nature instead of a willfully malicious instigator. It is perhaps the act at the end that renders her most pitiable, taking her life when she realizes she will not be able to pay her debts.
Each novel shows us a “naturalization” of the use of evil in novels. While each character is far from the stereotypical shining protagonist, they still manage to elicit empathy and caring for them during their trials. Though once they might have been considered evil characters they have now been rendered to impetuous or neglected individuals. Products of their society instead of the simple selfish ingrates they are.