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 inwardly addresses Heathcliff; her wish to be at the Heights expresses her wish to be with Heathcliff.
This is mirrored when Heathcliff forces Cathy to the Heights, and being a different character to her mother she is very uncomfortable there, as she is uncomfortable with Heathcliff. She does not want to marry Linton, but says she will ‘within this hour, if I may go to Thrushcross Grange afterwards.’ Catherine has a fiery and tempestuous nature, similar to the manic and dark descriptions of the Heights, symbolising her belonging there. Cathy, however, is much more civilised and warm, and so suits the atmosphere of the Grange much better. She also wishes to return to her father, her love of the Grange a part of her love of her father. Her preference of the Grange conveys how she is a misfit amongst those at the Heights, shown with Lockwood’s first visit when he mistakes Cathy for Heathcliff’s wife and Heathcliff responds ‘with an almost diabolical sneer’.
This use of the two houses to demonstrate how the relative residents are so contrasting and therefore so tense with each other is also apparent with Isabella’s marriage to Heathcliff and subsequently their relationship. Isabella has been raised in the amiable atmosphere of the Grange, and when she goes to the Heights she, like Cathy, immediately finds herself out of place. In her letter to Nelly, she writes ‘my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty-four hours after I left it’. Her unhappiness at the Heights is mirrored by the state of her and Heathcliff’s relationship and she asks Nelly ‘is he a devil?’ This is a rhetorical question to which she already has concluded the answer.
The warm, homely and peaceful atmosphere of the Grange reflects Edgar’s nature as well as his daughter’s. It is written that ‘Mr. Edgar had a deep rooted fear of ruffling [Catherine’s] humour’; he wishes to maintain the tranquillity of the Grange, showing this in how he approaches his relationship with Catherine. In contrast, the Heights is described as a much rougher location. The very word ‘Wuthering’ implies violent weather and tempests; strong lexis for strong weather to go with the violent emotions of the residents. This is particularly prominent in the line ‘a storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury’, this fury representing the flaring tempers and fierce confrontations that flourish within relationships at the Heights.
Brontë also uses this environmental imagery to demonstrate the effects of bringing people from each household together. At the Grange there are ‘honeysuckles embracing the thorn’; metaphorical of the gentle Linton embracing the wild Catherine. The Heights, on the other hand, is full of division. ‘There was a violent wind as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building’ – this could be interpreted simply as another representation of the nature of those at the Heights, but if it is analysed further it also demonstrates that the splits and divides that frequent the Heights are caused by the violent, spirited emotion of those within.
Thrushcross Grange maintains a peaceful aura even when there are tensions within, showing that the relationships there simmer rather than incurring violent rows; however Nelly talks of a night at the Heights when ‘clouds appeared inclined to thunder’. This symbolises the tendency of those from the Heights to fly into rages, and so aids our understanding of the volatile nature of their relationships.
The abundant pathetic fallacy surrounding both the Heights and the Grange again appears when Brontë writes that ‘Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour’. ‘Silvery vapour’ conjures beautiful imagery of peace and no hostility and amongst this the Heights is conspicuous because it so lacks these attributes. The gulf between the ‘silvery vapour’ and the Heights is a symbol of the contrast between residents of the two houses; it illustrates not only their difference in character but that they do not mingle easily and in particular the lack of understanding between Catherine and Edgar. The Heights is exposed to the elements, the wild weather embodying the wild passions of those within. The Grange, on the other hand, is in a sheltered valley, reflecting the sheltered upbringing of the Lintons, and again this demonstrates how different and unsuited Catherine and Edgar are.
Whilst most of the environmental relationship imagery in ‘Wuthering Heights’ revolves around the two houses, it comes across in other elements of the story too. For example, in the opening paragraph of the book, Lockwood remarks that ‘In all of England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society’. Lockwood himself is from ‘the stir of society’ and is a traditional gentleman like Edgar. His own words observe how his home is so removed from here and symbolise how removed he is from the people around him. He is from outside the moors, and thus is a social outsider. His complex etiquette is out of place in the elemental chaos of these relationships.
Another location which emphasises relationships in Wuthering Heights is that of Catherine’s grave. She says to Edgar how she will rest ‘not among the Lintons, mind, under the chapel-roof, but in the open air’. This conveys how Catherine was never suited to the Lintons. In the end, Heathcliff and Edgar are both buried alongside her; the three-person dynamic during death that existed for the most part of their lives. The setting of the graves is also used to provide conclusion to the book. Lockwood talks of the ‘benign sky’, ‘moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells’ and the ‘soft wind’; this calm atmosphere helps us to comprehend how relationships amongst the Lintons, Earnshaws and Heathcliffs have finally reached a peace.
The use of setting in Wuthering Heights is reminiscent of the scene in Jane Eyre in which Jane’s aunt locks her in the Red Room where her uncle died. Charlotte Brontë describes Jane’s prison as ‘stately’; the mismatch between her unruly young character and this imperious room reflects how she is a ‘discord’ at Gateshead Hall. The room is also described as ‘chill’ and ‘solemn’ and carrying ‘a sense of dreary consecration’. The dark and negative atmosphere of the room is paramount in Jane’s state of mind; seeing herself in the mirror, she observes ‘glittering eyes of fear’. This incident is particularly similar to the discomfort both Catherine and Cathy encounter at the opposing houses.
The relationships come full circle in Wuthering Heights; they begin with Catherine and Heathcliff, and finish peacefully with the union of Cathy and Hareton. This is reflected by the settings which also come full circle – the story begins and ends with Lockwood journeying to Wuthering Heights. This helps us to understand the journey of the relationships throughout the novel. It is also an indication that this is a Romantic novel, that the landscape has such a clear moral and emotional significance.
Bibliography
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
www.wikipedia.org