Wuthering Heights By Bronte Essays (1152 words) - Fiction

Wuthering Heights By Bronte Throughout the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte effectively utilizes weather and setting as methods of conveying insight to the reader of the personal feeling of the characters. While staying at Thrushcross Grange, Mr. Lockwood made a visit to meet Mr. Heathcliff for a second time, and the horrible snow storm that he encounters is the first piece of evidence that he should have perceived about Heathcliff's personality. The setting of the moors is one that makes them a very special place for Catherine and Heathcliff, and they are thus very symbolic of their friendship and spirts. The weather and setting are very effective tools used throughout the end of the novel as well, for when the weather becomes nice it is not only symbolic of the changing times, and the changing people, but also a new beginning. During his stay at Thrushcross Grange Mr. Lockwood made the perilous journey to Wuthering Heights only a few times. On the occasion of his second visit, "the snow began to drive thickly"(7) during his walk, and this horrible weather should have been foreshadowing to Lockwood about Heathcliff's, and the other member's of the household's true personalities. Upon arriving he was forced to bang continually upon the door before someone would take the care to let him in out of the cold. The dinner that Lockwood was permitted to have with the ?family' was anything but hospitable. Lockwood was treated not unlike an ignorant and unworthy guest, and hence the visit was in no way enjoyable for him. Upon desiring to leave the destitute home, Lockwood finds the weather too intolerable for him to even consider venturing out on his own, and upon being attacked by one of the dogs, "he was pulled into the kitchen"(15) and allowed, however ungraciously, to stay the night at Wuthering Heights. Once his walk home commenced the following day, Lockwood found himself being escorted by Heathcliff himself. The path that is used as a means of connection between the two houses does well to exemplify the feeling contained within each. The path that is nearest to the Heights is long and winding, with "many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries . . . blotted from the chart"(28). This description is a disheartening one, and causes the reader to associate this kind of representation with the Heights. Upon reaching the pass between the Heights and the Grange, Heathcliff did not continue to direct Lockwood's travels. He stated that he "could make no error there"(28), for the path is transformed into one that is straight and easy for Lockwood to follow. These preliminary descriptions of the path between the two houses, and the weather upon first being introduced to the characters, help in conveying the personalities of the characters in a more subtle manner. The area surrounding both the Heights and the Grange are referred to as the moors, and they are an important setting for many characters throughout the course of the novel. The two characters that the moors are most symbolic of, however, are Heathcliff and Catherine Linton. The two would play on the moors as children, and this area of land was very expressive of their wild personalities, and of their friendship. The moors are thought of by them as a place where they could be free and unrestricted to be themselves. Bront? once again utilizes a setting to represent the personalities of her characters, for here she uses the wildness of the moors to express the wildness of Heathcliff and Catherine. One evening Catherine makes the decision to marry Edgar Linton, and not her true love Heathcliff. Heathcliff hears her declaration and runs off into the moors. Not long after Heathcliff leaves the vicinity of the Grange, a "storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury"(78), and Catherine refuses to sleep without her love present in the Heights. "Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquility. She kept wandering to and fro, from the gate to the door . . . and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road, where, . . . great drops [of rain] began to plash around her(78). She was desperate for Heathcliff to come home, and without Catherine even speaking, the reader can know of this desperation. Bront? is able to allow the outer weather to symbolize the inner emotional state of Catherine. The setting of the moors is not only able to distinguish the