Storm & Calm in Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights :: Wuthering Heights Essays

Wuthering Heights Storm & Calm The theme of Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, is a universe of opposing forces-storm and calm. Wuthering Heights, the land of storm, is a sturdy house that is forwardness up high on the windy moors, belonging to the Earnshaw family. The house is highly charged with emotion of hatred, cruelty, violence, and savage love. In comparison, Thrushcross Grange, the land of calm, is settled in the valley and is the residence of the genteel Lintons. The alike differences exists between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, as they do in Heathcliff and Edgar. As Catherine points out, the contrast between the two resembled what you realize in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country, for a beautiful fertile valley. (Bronte 72) The Lintons, and the favorable and material advantages they stand for become Heathcliffs rivals for Catherines love, which leads directly to the fundamental conflict of the novel. Heathcliff despises them at starting line sig ht for their weakness, but Catherine, being an extremely proud girl, is tempted. A lovers triangle begins to take definite shape when the dark Edgar Linton falls in love with Catherine, upsetting the balance between the descent of Catherine and Heathcliff. Edgars love for Catherine is sincere, but the element of great passion which is strongly characterized does not compare to Heathcliffs love. The difference between Catherines timbre for Heathcliff and the one she feels for Linton is that Heathcliff is a dower of her nature, while Edgar is only a part of her superficial love. For he (Heathcliff), like her, is a pincer of storm and this makes a bond between them, which interweaves itself with the very nature of their existence. (Cecil 26) Emily Bronte makes a point in the novel to mention the fact that Catherines affection for Heathcliff remains unvarying in spite of the Lintons influence over her. As Catherine confesses to Nelly that Heathcliff and her share the same soul, and also declares I am Heathcliff. (Bronte 84) Her pride, yearning for the world of the Lintons, has gotten the better of her inhering inclination, and she knows she has make the wrong decision by marrying Edgar. Catherine, naturally a child of storm, is unable to develop at Thrushcross Grange, while she is married to Edgar. Her mind becomes disturbed, which is the first sign of her degeneration. The pragmatic reality at the Grange cannot fill the void that she has made for herself in leaving her furious childhood environment.