In Wuthering
Heights, Emily Brontë makes use of atmospheric conditions to emphasise events
and highlight the mood of the characters in the story. The Yorkshire moors are
known for their harsh beauty and sometimes desolate landscape. This theme of a
rough countryside filled with hidden beauties and seasonal storms fits well
into the storyline of Wuthering Heights.
The title of the
novel and the name of the Earnshaw's dwelling is used by Emily Brontë's to
project the overall mood of the book. She herself writes that the word
"Wuthering [is] a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the
atmospheric tumult to which its station
(the Earnshaw house) is exposed in stormy weather" (p.2).
Many of the notable events that take place
between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange are accompanied by a change in
the weather. Emily Brontë uses the weather to show the beginning of a
transition from calm to turbulent events in the storyline. The books starts
with Lockwood's arrival, a severe winter storm raging outside foreshadows the
unfriendly environment he is about to enter and the chaotic events that he is
going to witness through Nellie's story telling. When Nelly begins to tell the
story of the two neighbouring households, she describes Old Mr. Earnshaw
setting out to Liverpool on a "fine summer morning" (p.34). Yet, when
Old Mr. Earnshaw dies she relates that "A high wind blustered round the
house, and roared in the chimney; it sounded wild and stormy" (p. 41).
Emily Brontë often uses the weather to
accentuate the personality traits and moods of the characters throughout the
novel. The countryside's sometimes savage weather compares well to Heathcliff's
temperament. Heathcliff disapears for days on end into this desolate landscape
and seems to be most at home when wandering about in the moors. He is quick to
fly into a rage, like a winter storm beating at Wuthering Heights with wind and
hail. Heathcliff's storms of rage often abate, but they can fly into full force
without care for anything or anyone around him like the force of mother nature
on the moors. Like a winter storm, Heathcliff's strength cannot remain with him
forever. At the end of the novel, Heathcliff's rage has abated, and he has lost
the will to render any more harm, with his death a stormy period in the history
of the Earnshaws' and the Lintons' has passed.
The final pages of this novel leave the reader
with a feeling of content and happiness which has once again descended upon
Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë writes that the weather is "sweet and
warm" (p.305), she has brought the 'storm' to an end.
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