The setting of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange is on the Yorkshire moors, frequently in the book described as desolate, cold and inhospitable and even the name given to Heithcliff’s estate ‘Wuthering’ is a ‘significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.’ There are numerous references to weather in the novel, which emphasize the harsh remote surroundings, continuously battered by wind. The house seems almost like a fortress, where the ideas of barriers are present in entailing its inhospitable characteristics. When Lockwood arrives, his ‘horse’s breast fairly pushing the barrier, he (Heithcliff) did pull out his hand to unchain it,’ showing the lack of concern or consideration for other people which characterises Heithcliff at the start of the novel. Although the home is cold and basic, where ‘the floor was of smooth, white stone: the chairs, high-backed, primitive structures, painted green: one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade’, the description of the fire place contrasts this. Perhaps in Heithcliff, just as the fire in the house, there maybe some goodness.
Bronte’s two sources of imagery in the first four chapters are nature where the land and weather are used to describe moods but also animals in comparison to the way characters react in certain situations. The mood throughout the first few chapters is ominous and Lockwood’s ‘sociable’ character places him on dangerous ground. He is attacked by Heithcliff’s ‘herd of possessed swine’ that inhabit the bare and old-fashioned rooms and when called for help, it is implied that Lockwood had tried to steal something, ‘They won’t meddle with persons who touch nothing’. The same threatening aura is created when Joseph knows that Lockwood is not stealing the lantern on his way home, but still sets the dogs on him. ‘Maister, maister, he’s staling t’lantern!’ Almost all the characters that Lockwood encounters are associated with animal imagery especially Heathcliff, who ‘growled…in unison’ with his own dogs and his daughter-in-law who ‘never opened her mouth. I stared – she stared also.’ It is symbolic that when Heathcliff arrives at the Heights as a child he is referred to as ‘it’ This is a further extention of the metaphor of a dog and even in retrospect when Nelly Dean, a servant to the household, is telling stories of the past, she refers to Heathcliff as ‘it’.
There are no scenes of happiness and the only pleasure exhibited is that of Heathcliff’s where Lockwood’s ‘agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose, and still Heathcliff laughed.’ Their attitude is seen through the way the characters compose themselves in the second chapter, through their rudeness and unwillingness to take part in Mr Lockwood’s futile attempts to make conversation.
Although Lockwood’s meddlesome behaviour infuses the first four chapters with confusion due to his presumptions, it does however result in him discovering Heathcliff’s past and the causes of his aggressive and ‘exaggeratedly reserved’ nature. He repeatedly returns to Wuthering Heights, when unmistakably not welcomed, and due to difficult weather circumstances, is allowed to stay the night in a chamber that Heithcliff ‘never let anybody lodge there willingly.’ There he finds books where the margins of pages are covered with the diary entries of Catherine Linton and uncovers her and Heithcliff’s childhood accounts. Bronte cunningly kindles the reader’s interest by revealing these extracts from the diaries, almost like a prelude to what is about to be revealed. The third Chapter is pervaded with mystery and suspense where a supernatural element appears to Lockwood in a dream, ‘it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through even reaching my station, and blowing out the light,’ however as Lockwood leaves the room to sleep else where he hears Heathcliff ‘bursting…into an uncontrollable passion of tears’ asking ‘Come in! Come in!...Cathy, do come. Oh do – once more! Oh! My Heart’s darling! Hear me this time, Catherine, at last!’ What we have seen of Heithcliff in the first two chapters gives the reader the impression that he is heartless and cold, but there is now an indication that he is a deeply passionate man, tormented over the loss of Cathy.
The fourth chapter contains a shift in narrators. Nelly becomes the second narrator and Lockwood becomes the listener. Nelly informs us of the father going abroad promising presents to his children and returning with ‘a dirty, ragged, black haired child, ‘ who was first made part of and then expelled from the family. Her story does much to establish the relationships of the characters. Nelly is close in body but distanced in position from the events she relates, and while she is affectionate she is also judgemental, thus inviting us to participate in or reject her opinions. She explains the conflict between Hindley and Heathcliff and reveals the affectionate relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff. The three children she describes are versions of the adults they are in the previous chapters. As readers we become more aware and understanding of Heathcliff’s present character.
The first four chapters of the novel establish a sense of mystery that should keep the audience interested and attentive. The change of narrators gives the book a new outlook or perspective and there is a focus on Catherine’s relationship with Heathcliff. The opening of the novel is the beginning of a story that weaves a complex pattern of contrasts within themes that appear later on in the novel and are not so clear at the beginning. The theme of love is introduced to the novel although a supernatural and ominous feel remains. The opening chapters are successful in engaging the reader with its many interpretations and symbolism, especially in chapter 3 where the ghost of Catherine Linton is not perhaps simply a figment of Lockwood’s imagination. The novel will only appeal to those who find the opening of it likeable and worth reading.
