Civilization vs. Wilderness in Wuthering Heights

Civilization vs. Wilderness in Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is a story full of symbols, themes and motifs among which we can also encounter the opposition between civilization and wilderness. 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 desolate moors, one by the name of Wuthering Heights, and the other by the name of Thrushcross Grange. Each house stands alone and the atmosphere creates a mood of isolation. In the novel, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange are the two places where virtually all of the action takes place. However, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, differ greatly from each other in appearance and atmosphere. These differences reflect the universal conflict between the storm and calm that Emily Bronte develops as the theme in the novel. This paper analyzes the way the above introduced opposition is representative for the two estates in the story: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange as well as for their owners: Heathcliff and the Lintons.

From the very beginning, the writer identifies Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff, although the estate had previously belonged to Mr. Earnshaw, the man who gave to Heathcliff a family, the latter being an orphan.

“,Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling, "wuthering" being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.”,

As Emily Bronte bluntly puts it, the estate’,s name can be related to a changeable character, the use of the noun “,tumult”, expressing more than it might seem at first sight. It gives the impression of a dynamic charact...

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...side the beautiful room, and the two wild children outside, both boy and girl of similar ages makes the glass of the window take on the role of a kind of mirror. However, the "mirror" shows the complete opposite rather than the true images of those who look into it. The mirror can be associated to a gateway to civilization for Catherine, who sees in it a salvation from the misery she was living in, an option to achieve social advancement.

In conclusion, the author manages to give the reader a clear outline of the binary opposition between civilization and wilderness, carefully describing her characters and moreover relating them to a specific location with which they will identify. In addition, the author uses a multitude of visual images along with symbolic features, such as the mirror or the ghost in order to create a more reliable human and static description.