EMILY BRONTE: Wuthering Heights Comment on the importance of setting in the novel

Answer Details

Setting is one of the most powerful elements in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. The two houses and the wild Yorkshire moors are not mere background; they shape character, mirror emotion and drive the meaning of the whole novel.

The two contrasting houses

• Wuthering Heights stands high and exposed, battered by storms. Its name itself means turbulent, stormy weather. It is stern, wild and comfortless, and it reflects the passionate, harsh natures of Heathcliff and the elder Catherine.
• Thrushcross Grange, sheltered in the valley, is refined, calm and comfortable. It reflects the gentle, civilised, somewhat weak Linton family.
• The movement of characters between the two houses charts the clash of two worlds: raw passion against social refinement.

The moors

• The open moorland is the natural home of Catherine and Heathcliff's love. As children they roam it freely, and it symbolises their wild, boundless, untamable bond.
• The moors also stand for freedom, danger and the supernatural; Catherine's spirit is imagined wandering there, and Heathcliff longs to be reunited with her upon it.

Weather and atmosphere

• Storms, wind, snow and darkness accompany moments of crisis and violent feeling, so that nature echoes the turbulence of human passion.
• Lockwood's nightmare and Catherine's ghost at the window gain their eerie force from the bleak, isolated setting.

Isolation

• The remoteness of the setting shuts the characters into an intense, enclosed world where their passions grow extreme, unchecked by ordinary society.

Conclusion

The setting of Wuthering Heights works almost as a character in its own right. Through the contrast of the two houses, the symbolism of the wild moors and the pathetic fallacy of storm and weather, Bronte externalises the passions of her people and gives the novel its brooding, elemental power.