Imagery of Nature
Wuthering Heights is immensely filled with nature imagery. Mathison believes that Wuthering Heights is a “wild novel” because of its illustration of the wild nature (18). From the moors to the barren landscape, Bronte brings together these images to depict a dreary and desolate setting. Bronte also uses the elements of nature to convey characteristics of characters. Bronte uses the imagery of nature to reflect the personalities of the characters in Wuthering Heights.
“’Wuthering’ is a Yorkshire term for roaring of the wind” which is constantly seen in the weather of Wuthering Heights (Wuthering Heights 316). The weather in Wuthering Heights changes with the mood of the characters or with the mood of the place. The novel begins with a snowstorm that almost kills Lockwood, establishing the dreary setting of the story. When Mr. Earnshaw passes away a raging storm appears signifying his death. A downpour of rain frequently emerges when the plot of the story has taken a sad turn. When Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights to London, rain symbolizes his departure. Rain also arose on the night of Heathcliff’s death (Wuthering Heights 317).
The imagery of weather is specific to each character in Wuthering Heights. Lockwood desires the weather to be bright and sunny and is highly disturbed with storms which reflect his cheerful attitude (Laar 75). Ellen Dean conjures several metaphors involving the weather such as rain and wind for example “…though our patient [Catherine] was as wearisome and headstrong as a patient could be, she weathered it through” (Bronte 80). She also loathes storms; she is unwilling to go out in the rain. Bronte created Nelly having a “close contact with nature” which symbo...
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...art of life that described what outside looked like. However, if one digs into the meaning of nature, extraordinary symbols arise. Nature affects characters in different ways, and nature does not treat each character in the same way. Overall, the imagery of nature portrayed the personalities of the characters.
Works Cited
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York: Bantam Books, 1981. Print.
Laar, Elisabeth T. M. The Inner Structure of Wuthering Heights: A Study of an Imaginative Field. The Hague: Mouton, 1969. Print.
Marsh, Nicholas. Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Print.
Mathison, John K. "Nelly Dean and the Power of "Wuthering Heights"." Nineteenth-century Literature. 11.2 (1956). Print.
"Wuthering Heights." fvhslibrary. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. .
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.
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...
Virginia Woolf and Emily Bronte possess striking similarities in their works. Both works have inanimate objects as pivotal points of the story line. For Bronte, Wuthering Heights itself plays a key role in the story. The feel of the house changes as the characters are introduced to it. Before Heathcliff, the Heights was a place of discipline but also love. The children got on well with each other and though Nelly was not a member of the family she too played and ate with them. When old Mr. Earnshaw traveled to Liverpool he asked the children what they wished for him to bring them as gifts and also promised Nelly a “pocketful of apples and pears” (WH 28). Heathcliff’s presence changed the Heights, “So, from the beginning, he had bred bad feeling in the house” (WH 30). The Heights became a place to dream of for Catherine (1) when she married Linton and moved to the Grange. For her it held the memories of Heathcliff and their love. For her daughter, Cathy, it became a dungeon; trapped in a loveless marriage in a cold stone home far away from the opulence and luxury of the home she was used to. Then, upon the death of Heathcliff, I can almost see, in my minds eye, the Heights itself relax into the warm earth around in it the knowledge that it too is once again safe from the vengeance, bitterness, and hate that has housed itself within its walls for over twenty years.
n the late winter months of 1801, a man named Lockwood rents a manor house called Thrushcross Grange in the isolated moor country of England. Here, he meets his dour landlord, Heathcliff, a wealthy man who lives in the ancient manor of Wuthering Heights, four miles away from the Grange. In this wild, stormy countryside, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him the story of Heathcliff and the strange denizens of Wuthering Heights. Nelly consents, and Lockwood writes down his recollections of her tale in his diary; these written recollections form the main part of Wuthering Heights.
Vine, Steven. "The Wuther of the Other in Wuthering Heights." Nineteenth-Century Literature Vol.49 No. 3 (1994): 339-359. JSTOR. Database. 30 Apr. 2014
This essay analyzed the all three of the setting in Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights, with the worst personality turned everybody into bitter unlikeable people like Catherine, for example. Thrusscross Grange, left an impression in the people there by making them more naïve because of the affluence it had. The moors, the purest of all three gave the people examples of life away from the other settings. Emily Brontë had put so much emphasis on these settings to prove that the enviorment leaves an impression on the people who live within
Web. 8 Dec. 2010. . Mitchell, Hayley R., ed. Readings on Wuthering Heights.
Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Bronte, has 323 pages. The genre of Wuthering Heights is realistic fiction, and it is a romantic novel. The book is available in the school library, but it was bought at Barnes and Nobles. The author’s purpose of writing Wuthering Heights is to describe a twisted and dark romance story. Thus, the author conveys the theme of one of life’s absolute truths: love is pain. In addition, the mood of the book is melancholy and tumultuous. Lastly, the single most important incident of the book is when Heathcliff arrives to Edgar Linton’s residence in the Granges unannounced to see Catherine’s state of health. Heathcliff’s single visit overwhelmed Catherine to the point of death.
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’, although having survived the test of time as a work that is poignant and passionate, and eminently capable of holding the reader’s attention, received mixed criticism upon publication in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. Apparently, the vivid description of mental and physical violence and agony was hard to stomach, and the atmosphere was too oppressive to merit popular liking. But many later readers and critics have given ‘Wuthering Heights’ the mantle of being the best of the works of the Bronte sisters, displacing Charlotte’s ‘Jane Eyre’. One of its prime merits, at least to my eyes, lies in Emily’s ability to make Nature an eloquent party to the story-corresponding closely with a character’s emotions, with the incidents, with the movement of the plot, and thus adding to the quality of the story. Emily was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, and her love for the landscape that she grew up with is reflected in the novel in the moors and the crags, the storms and the spring. One can see an extension of this one-ness with nature, this unity, in her choice of Wuthering Hei...
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. 1847. Ed. Richard J. Dunn. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 2003.
Bloomfield, Dennis. "An Analysis Of The Causes And Effects Of Sickness And Death In Wuthering Heights." Bronte Studies 36.3 (2011): 289-298. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
Bronte's Use of Language and Setting in Wuthering Heights Between pages 15 and 18 there are identifiable ways in which 'Bronte' uses 'language and setting' to establish the characters and create a distinguishable atmosphere. In this essay, themes, genres and styles will be discussed to show how 'Bronte' establishes the characters; there will also be a discussion of the 'gothic' elements which Wuthering Heights contains. Many people would argue that the style of 'Wuthering Heights' is peculiar and complex, the power of Wuthering Heights owes much to its complex narrative structure and to the device of having two conventional people relate a very unconventional tale. Bronte importantly introduces the element of 'the supernatural' into chapter 3 which is an important technique as it grips the reader. Lockwood has come into contact with the ghost of Cathy, who died 18 years before, Some might argue that she is a product of Lockwood's imagination, and it is clear that Bronte has presented these facts in this way so that the reader can make up their own mind on the subject.
In conclusion, Bronte uses the supernatural and ghosts in Wuthering Heights to emphasise the power of love between Cathy and Heathcliff and proving that love exists beyond the grave and that the quality of love is unending. Furthermore, ghosts are used to assist in the storytelling, to help in enhancing the setting and develop characterisation, particularly in the character of Heathcliff, Nelly and Lockwood. The use of the supernatural enables the reader to be intrigued by the confusing use of extraordinary beings.
Narratology divides a ‘narrative into story and narration’. (Cohan et al., 1988, p. 53) The three main figures that contribute a considerable amount of research to this theory are Gerard Genette, Aristotle and Vladimir Propp. This essay will focus on how Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights can be fully appreciated and understood when the theory is applied to the text. Firstly, I will focus on the components of narration Genette identifies that enhance a reader’s experience of the text. Secondly, I will discuss the three key elements in a plot that Aristotle recognises and apply these to Heathcliff’s character. In the final section I will apply part of the seven ‘spheres of action’, Propp categorises, to Heathcliff’s character. However, not all of Narratology can be applied to a text. This raises the question; does this hinder a readers understanding and/or appreciation of the text? This paper will also address this issue.