Yes! Teacher evaluations! The moment for revenge has arrived. Economics class murdered your GPA — plunged a dagger into its heart and sent it tumbling to the ground along with a hefty academic scholarship. It’s payback time. Days of mind-numbing definitions and barely-there whiteboard graphs and charts — the professor refused to acknowledge the Expo’s death sometime last month — will finally be avenged.

The pencil is poised over the comments page but halts momentarily. _Is this a good idea? Those all-nighters, those terrible homework grades, those are her fault, right? Right. She has it coming._

Lead connects with paper and scribbles bitter criticisms for a full 15 minutes. The TA notes a smirk on your face as you hand in the evaluation but thinks nothing of it. You walk down the center aisle and out the side door, filled to the brim with a vindictive satisfaction. It is this familiar feeling that drives Heathcliff, the main character in Emily Brontë’s classic novel “Wuthering Heights.”

Brontë’s brooding main man is motivated by revenge from the moment he appears. Heathcliff’s grudge is not unfounded — he is tormented from the moment of his arrival at Wuthering Heights. As a colicky orphan boy, Heathcliff quickly makes an enemy of almost everyone in his new home.

Things are well and good while Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff’s adopted father, is alive and well. For these few years, Heathcliff’s arch nemesis (and Earnshaw’s eldest son) Hindley can harm Heathcliff only in petty, childish ways. As soon as Mr. E. kicks the bucket, however, Hindley takes over as head of house and does his best to make Heathcliff’s life a living hell.

Even worse, Catherine, Earnshaw’s younger daughter and Heathcliff’s only friend in the world, decides to marry puny neighbor Edgar Linton for his social status, though it is Heathcliff whom she truly loves.

Heathcliff now has double the number of axes to grind: he vehemently hates both Hindley and Edgar. Revenge on both is a slow and gradual process spread throughout many years, but the potent flame keeps Heathcliff working toward his ultimate goals long after his beloved Catherine is dead.

His schemes operate long-term and are frighteningly effective. First, he forces Hindley deep enough into debt to sell Wuthering Heights, which Heathcliff buys for himself. Hindley turns to the bottle, suffering a slow death by liquor, so that’s the end of that.

Heathcliff then marries Edgar Linton’s sister, abuses her heavily and has a son who will ultimately inherit the Linton estate. After years of plotting, the flame of revenge within Heathcliff eventually sputters and dies.

He is left with nothing but a vast emptiness, despite seeing every last one of his plans come to volition. Revenge, he is forced to acknowledge, is a greedy goal. It takes more than it gives and leaves the perpetrator exhausted by his efforts. Instead of a life with Catherine and the acceptance he has craved since childhood, revenge leaves Heathcliff sapped and all the more desperate. Revenge will not bring his love back. It won’t even satisfy his grudges against Hindley or Edgar, who are both buried and at peace. Heathcliff is alive and tormented, no thanks to his so-called “triumph.”

Heathcliff is left with nothing but a persisting grief for Catherine. He eventually stops eating and sleeping and wastes away, an empty vessel still mourning his lost love. It’s almost pathetic enough that you feel sorry for the guy.

Poor Heathcliff discovers too late that revenge doesn’t fill the hole left by a dead lover and brutality won’t make up for childhood neglect. Don’t make his mistakes.

If that bully Economics has mistreated you in your scary new campus home, revenge won’t gain you any compassion. If you’re mourning the loss of an academic scholarship, will snarky comments really help you cycle through the five stages of grief any faster? Probably not. Will they change a teacher set in his or her ways? Doubtful. Do teachers even read those things? Open to interpretation.

Before you walk away from that completed evaluation form, before the wickedly triumphant feeling fades and you’re left wallowing in your own sorrows, consider Heathcliff’s precedent. Schemes of revenge, even if they succeed, yield little more than wasted effort and renewed sorrow.