How does Bront use the settings of the novel to enhance our understanding of some of the relationships in 'Wuthering Heights'?

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How does Brontë use the settings of the novel to enhance our understanding of some of the relationships in ‘Wuthering Heights’?

        In ‘Wuthering Heights’, the most evident use of setting is in describing the blinding contrast in the relationships between Catherine and Heathcliff and Catherine and Edgar.

        Catherine describes her love for Heathcliff as being like the ‘eternal rocks beneath’; this simile creates imagery of something immoveable, a foundation for what comes above - Catherine’s love for Heathcliff is the base for everything about her. However, when discussing her love for Edgar, she says ‘Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees.’ The way she feels about Edgar is defined by her mood and so fluctuates, Brontë demonstrating this using a simile of leaf colour through the seasons. She contrasts the two relationships even more directly when Catherine says ‘What ever our souls are made of, [Heathcliff’s] and mine are the same’, while Linton’s and hers are ‘as different as moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire’. By using elemental imagery, Brontë shows that whereas Heathcliff and Catherine are deeply similar and so have a close understanding, Edgar is too different. Her relationship with him is subject to change but her love for Heathcliff is constant.

        This comparison continues throughout the novel. Heathcliff is ‘a bleak, hilly coal country’, whilst Edgar is ‘a beautiful fertile valley’; these environments show the dissimilarity between the two men and so help us to understand the contrast in the relationships Catherine has with each. Whilst initially, ‘a beautiful fertile valley’ sounds much more inviting, knowing Catherine’s character we know that the dark metaphor for Heathcliff is much closer to her nature. Heathcliff and Catherine are shown throughout the novel as being connected with the wild, elemental atmosphere of both the Heights and the moors, helping us to further understand the similarities between the two and the strength of their relationship. Edgar, on the other hand, is a gentleman, and so very alienated from this elemental imagery.

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        Catherine’s familiarity with the Heights is demonstrated by her discomfort at the Grange, which in itself symbolises her discomfort with Linton. The desperation with which she tries to return to the Heights and to Heathcliff shows this. Near the opening, her ghost begs Lockwood to ‘Let me in!’ at the window of the Heights, saying how she is ‘come home’. Her desire to return is again shown just before she dies, when she struggles to open the window, and though there are no lights visible from the Heights, she ‘asserted she caught their shining’. In this same paragraph, she also ...

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