The difference between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross grange can be
thought of as a metaphysical opposition between storm and calm.
How does this statement effect your reading and understanding of the
novel “Wuthering heights”
Wuthering Heights is a love story focused on two quite different
families, the Earnshaws and the Lintons. They live in contrasting
houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Wuthering Heights is
a lonely old farmhouse on top of the Yorkshire moors. It is exposed to
the wilderness and the elements. Thrushcross Grange is lower down the
valley, closer to civilisation and has a gentler and more cultivated
atmosphere.
The houses and the characters that live in them are similar. They are
introduced to us in the first chapter when Mr Lockwood visits
Wuthering Heights, which is “completely removed from the stir of
civilization”. Lockwood, a gentleman from the south of England who is
renting the Grange, comes to Wuthering Heights on a bleak night in the
middle of a snowstorm to introduce himself to Heathcliff who is now
the owner of both properties, therefore Mr Lockwood’s landlord. He
finds Heathcliff and his servant Joseph unfriendly. The old house
“1500” itself is also unwelcoming. ‘Wuthering’being….. descriptive of
the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy
weather’ due to the “north wind blowing”. Indeed the name of the house
itself can be seen to be indicative of its metaphysical qualities. The
word “Wuthering” is Yorkshire slang for stormy and Heights relates to
the heights of passion and anger inside the house. “before passing
through the threshold” Lockwood describes the gate as a barrier and
inside the house there are ‘hidden dens’ of dogs who ...
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... warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it,
and the two dwarf apple trees near the southern wall in full bloom”.
They get married on New Years Day and it appears as though they are
breaking away from the stormy chaos and hatred that filled the
previous generation’s lives, to make a new and fresh start. The
choice of New Years Day represents News Years resolutiosn, positive
thought and new beginnings and growth/
In my opinion, it appears that the disorder and chaos created because
of the complete differences between the two houses and families and
Heathcliff’s influence on them both has now been resolved and a sense
of calm has been achieved. The death of Heathcliff removed all sense
of anger, revenge and ravages which surrounded the houses for much of
the book. The two houses are combined in this calmer, happier, more
natural atmosphere.
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights share similarities in many aspects, perhaps most plainly seen in the plots: just as Clarissa marries Richard rather than Peter Walsh in order to secure a comfortable life for herself, Catherine chooses Edgar Linton over Heathcliff in an attempt to wrest both herself and Heathcliff from the squalid lifestyle of Wuthering Heights. However, these two novels also overlap in thematic elements in that both are concerned with the opposing forces of civilization or order and chaos or madness. The recurring image of the house is an important symbol used to illustrate both authors’ order versus chaos themes. Though Woolf and Bronte use the house as a symbol in very different ways, the existing similarities create striking resonances between the two novels at certain critical scenes.
Wuthering Heights went through its own transformation throughout the novel. Wuthering Heights is a good novel to show that everyone and everything has the ability to change. Almost every character’s appearance or personality is altered in some way.
Cathy and Heathcliff's separation only therefore ensues as a result of their initial outing to Thrushcross Grange. Their promise to grow up together as 'rude as savages,' is destroyed when Cathy and Heathcliff are separated physically by many factors resulting from this visitation. Just as the Linton's dog 'holds' Cathy, so too is the Linton's house symbolically presented as separating her from Heathcliff, when Heathcliff resorts to peering in through their 'great glass panes' to see Cathy, after being physically 'dragged' out of Thrushcross Grange.
The tone in Wuthering Heights is dreary and melancholy. This style provides the dark atmosphere to the story. Most of the story is conveyed through the narration of Ellen Dean. Setterfield uses a similar style in her story. Most of the story in her book is told by Vida Winter. The technique of flashbacks is used in both books. In both novels the two characters Lockwood and Margaret start out the story from their perspective, later the narrator changes. Wuthering Heights’s Mr. Lockwood hears the story from Ellen Dean (Nelly) much like Margaret hears the story from Vida Winter in The Thirteenth Tale. The two stories are broken up into sections due to interruptions made by the storyteller and situations that arise. The story of Wuthering Heights is told through flashbacks recorde...
From the beginning of the novel and most likely from the beginning of Heathcliff's life, he has suffered pain and rejection. When Mr. Earnshaw brings him to Wuthering Heights, he is viewed as a thing rather than a child. Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out the doors, while Nelly put it on the landing of the stairs hoping that it would be gone the next day. Without having done anything to deserve rejection, Heathcliff is made to feel like an outsider. Following the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff suffers cruel mistreatment at the hands of Hindley. In these tender years, he is deprived of love, friendship, and education, while the treatment from jealous Hindley is barbaric and disrupts his mental balance. He is separated from the family, reduced to the status of a servant, undergoes regular beatings and forcibly separated from his soul mate, Catherine. The personality that Heathcliff develops in his adulthood has been formed in response to these hardships of his childhood.
The complicated nature surrounding Heathcliff’s motives again adds an additional degree of ambiguity to his character. This motivation is primarily driven by Catherine’s marriage to Edgar and past rejection of Heathcliff, since he was a servant whom Hindley disapproved of. Prior to storming out of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff overhears Catherine say, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now…” (Brontë 87). The obstacles that ultimately prevent Heathcliff from marrying Catherine provide insight into Heathcliff’s desire to bring harm to Edgar and Hindley. The two men play prominent roles in the debacle, Edgar as the new husband and Hindley as the head figure who refused Heathcliff access to Catherine. Following this incident, Catherine says, “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…” (Brontë 87). Catherine’s sentiment indicates she truly would rather be with Heathcliff, but the actions of others have influenced her monumental decision to marry Edgar. Furthermore, Heathcliff is motivated to not only ruin Edgar’s livelihood, but also gain ownership of his estate, Thrushcross Grange. This becomes clear when Heathcliff attempts to use Isabella
Shapiro, Arnold. “‘Wuthering Heights’ as a Victorian Novel.” Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 16. Eds. Joann Cerrito and Paul Kepos. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. 108-110.
Wuthering Heights is a classic in which Emily Bronte presents two opposite settings using the country setting. Country settings are often used as a place of virtue and peace or of ignorance and one of primitivism as believed by many city dwellers. But, in the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte has used Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights to depict isolation and separation. Wuthering Heights setting is wild, passionate, and strong and Thrushcross Grange and its inhabitants are calm, harshly strict, and refined and these two opposite forces struggle throughout the novel.
The setting used throughout the novel Wuthering Heights, helps to set the mood to describe the characters. We find two households separated by the cold, muddy, and barren moors, one by the name of Wuthering Heights, and the other Thrushcross Grange. Each house stands alone, in the mist of the dreary land, and the atmosphere creates a mood of isolation. These two places, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange differ greatly in appearance and mood. These differences reflect the universal conflict between storm and calm that Emily Bronte develops as the theme.
...ctive. Catherine is pushed to death and Heathcliff to brutal revenge, bordering on the psychotic. Yet before Cathy’s death, the knowledge that the other loves them is strong enough to make Wuthering Heights such a classic love story, and “that old man by the kitchen fire affirming he has seen two of 'em looking out of his chamber window, on every rainy night since his death,” shows that as they walk together on the moors, their self destruction may have led them to death, but also to what they most desired-being together.
strong magnetism representing savagery and Thrushcross grange with its refinement and pleasant appearance representing civility. Wuthering heights has the characteristics of being very strong. prominent structure and is described by Mr Lockwood as being a misanthropists in heaven and beyond. It is a very desolate and lonely place up on a hill exposed to stormy weather with no real beauty and can be seen as an uncivilised place to live. Thrushcross Grange is a very classy, civilised estate and a lovely home.
Wuthering Heights is a novel which deviates from the standard of Victorian literature. The novels of the Victorian Era were often works of social criticism. They generally had a moral purpose and promoted ideals of love and brotherhood. Wuthering Heights is more of a Victorian Gothic novel; it contains passion, violence, and supernatural elements (Mitchell 119). The world of Wuthering Heights seems to be a world without morals.
(4) Wuthering Heights’s mood is melancholy and tumultuous. As a result, the book gives off a feeling of sorrow and chaos. For example, Catherine’s marriage with Edgar Linton made Heathcliff jealous and angry. In retaliation, Heathcliff married Edgar’s sister, Isabella, to provoke Catherine and Edgar. Heathcliff and Isabella’s marriage ignited a chaotic uproar with Edgar and Catherine because Linton disapproved of Heathcliff’s character, and Catherine loved Heathcliff in spite of being married to Edgar. Inside, Catherine wanted to selfishly keep Heathcliff to herself. Their relationships all had tragic endings because Catherine died giving birth to Edgar’s child. Isabella also died, leaving behind her young son. Heathcliff and Edgar resented each other because of misery they experienced together. The transition of the mood in the story is from chaotic to somber.
First, Wuthering Heights is a contribution to the theme of the novel because it sets the mood for the scenes taken place inside the house. The house is first introduced to the reader during a storm. The house stands alone and the land around it is described as dreary and foreboding, which creates a mood of isolation. “On the bleak Yorkshire moors” describes the Yorkshire moors physical appearance. The estate has little vegetation and is more weathered, which moors are, as they are jutting, bare rocks towards the ocean. Wuthering Heights is an old stone house with gothic architecture and bleak interior. The people that live in Wuthering Heights are bitter and act violent. The characters of the story act wild when they are at Wuthering Heights, compared to other places in the novel. The setting of the house enforces the actions of the Earnshaws’, and Heathcliff. The name of the estate even sets a theme of gloom in the novel. Lockwood says Wuthering is, “a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather” (12).
Wuthering Heights. 1847. The. Ed. Richard J. Dunn, Ph.D. 4th ed.