Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights (7)

Wuthering Heights - Bronte

Wuthering Heights contains elements of the Gothic fiction. Symbolism plays an important role in the novel. The setting of the novel is almost as important as the characters themselves. The two houses in which the action takes place, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange symbolize respectively the Romantic world of destructive passion and the neo-Classical world of civility. Wuthering Heights on the bare, stormy hills represents the evil, destructive energy of its occupants, while Thrushcross Grange, surrounded by vegetation in the peaceful, soft valley, stands for the calm and civilized ways of the Lintons.

The elemental, primitive force of nature is omnipresent and it emphasizes the wild passion of Heathcliff and Cathrine.
Wuthering Heights contains influences of William Blake, in particular the idea of the unity of contraries. An interesting aspect of the novel is its multi-level narrative structure. There are two different narrators: an external narrator called Lockwood, who reports the story in his diary and an internal narrator, Nelly Dean, the housekeeper who tells the events to Mr Lockwood. Information is sometimes withheld to create suspense and interest and in the end all the details fit together perfectly in spite of the time shifts and the two narrating voices. Emily possessed a great level of intellectual strength and boldness, combined with extreme sensitivity. The novel is characterized by the absence of moral condemnation; Emily neither praises or blames her characters.