Stan Alexandra Elizzabet (Andries)

2nd year, 1st semester

Wuthering Heights is structured on the binary opposition civilization vs.

wilderness. How does Emily Bronte manage to make the reader aware of it?
Contrast the descriptions of the two estates, Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Heights, in Chapter 1 and 6. Are they representative of their
respective owners Heathcliff and Lintons?

Emily Brontes single novel is Wuthering Heights (1874), a tragic love story, with a
romantic content, but an extremely modern form. The meeting between the two major narrators
in the book (Lockwood, the initial narrator and Heathcliff, the protagonist) opens the novel,
building the novels structure on the duality of this characters, both socially and geographically
their first meeting takes place across a significant barrier (the gate on which Heathcliff leans).
After that, there are different kinds of distance between them: Lockwood banished himself from
civilization in a fit of melancholy, but still Heathcliff is a symbol of the wild forces in man; he
lives in the civilized world, but does not belong to it.
The two estates, Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, are symbolical of the two opposite
worlds: civilization and wilderness. Just as the reader is introduced to Wuthering Heights through
the eyes of an outsider, Lockwood, so is the Grange first seen by the two outsiders, Cathy and
Heathcliff, who catch a glimpse of its luxurious interior through the barrier of a window.
Wuthering Heights is based on the antagonist play between nature and culture, a vision of great
impact at the time and one of the main reasons for which this novel is a literary masterpiece.
Between all the antagonisms used through it we must note the internal and external conflicts:
nature vs. civilization, wild vs. tame, natural impulses vs. artificial restraint.

In order to understand the conflict between nature and civilization in Wuthering Heights,
we have to first make the clear distinction between the main characters, representing the nature
(the Earnshaw family) and the civilization (the Linton family). Catherine and Heathcliff,
members of the Earnshaw family, are governed by their passions, not by reflection or ideals of
civility. The house where they live comes to symbolize a similar wildness. On the other hand,
Thrushcross Grange and the Linton family represent culture, refinement, convention and
cultivation.
Heathcliff is a distinct member of the Earnshaw family. He is of unknown descent and
seems to represent the wild and natural forces that often seem amoral and dangerous. His almost
inhuman devotion for Catherine is the moving force in his life. He is magnificent in his
consistency, even if cruel.
On the other hand, Edgar Linton, in contrast to Heathcliff, as a gently bred, a refined man, a
patient husband and a loving father.
In Chapter VI, Catherine is bitten by the Lintons dog and brought into Thrushcross Grange. This
is when the two sides are brought onto the collision course that structures the majority of the
novels plot. On the first meeting between the Linton and Earnshaw households, chaos has
already begun erupt at Wuthering Heights, where Hindleys cruelty and injustice reign, while all
seems to be fine and peaceful at Thrushcross Grange. But the influence of Wuthering Heights
soon proves overpowering, and the inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange are drawn into Catherine,
Hindley, and Heathcliffs drama. This can be interpreted as an impact of Wuthering Heights on
the Linton family as an allegory for the corruption of culture by nature, creating a curious
reversal of the more traditional story of the corruption of nature by culture.
Bronte tells her story as to prevent our interest and sympathy from straying too far from the
wilder characters and often portrays the more civilized characters as weak and silly. This
prevents the novel from flattening out into a simple privileging of culture over nature or vice
versa.
The situation of the reader beginning to enter into Wuthering Heights as a novel
parallels the situation of Lockwood, just beginning to enter into Wuthering Heights as a house.
Like Lockwood, the readers confront all sort of strange scenes and characters (especially
Heathcliff) and must venture their interpretations. Later illuminations of Heathcliffs personality
show this first interpretation to be a laughable failure, indicating little beyond Lockwoods
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vanity. Lockwood, in claiming to recognize in Heathcliff a kindred soul, whom he can

understand by instinct, makes assumptions that appear absurd once Heathcliffs history is
revealed.
While Lockwood proudly styles himself a great misanthrope and hermit, in fact resembles
Hearthcliff very little. In the many misjudgments and blunders Lockwood makes in his early
visits to Wuthering Heights, we see how easy it is to misinterpret Heathcliffs complex character.
Edgar Linton is a kind, gentle, civilized but cowardly man who represents the qualities of
Thrushcross Grange as opposed to the qualities of Wuthering Heights. Married to a woman that
he loves but cannot understand, he becomes a highly, sympathetic figure after Heathcliff returns
to Wuthering Heights. He finds himself in an almost impossible position, seeing his wife in love
with another man, but unable to do anything about it. He proves ineffectual when compared to
the strong willed Heathcliff.
Heathcliff begins his life as a homeless orphan on the streets of Liverpool. In the 1840s,
when the book was written , the English economy was severely depressed and the conditions of
the factory workers in industrial areas like Liverpool were appalling. Many of the more affluent
members of society beheld these workers with a mixture of sympathy and fear.
Considering his historical context, Heathcliff seems to embody the anxieties that the books
upper and middle-class audience had about the working classes. We can easily sympathize with
him when he is powerless, as a child tyrannized by Hindley Earnshaw, but he becomes a villain
when he acquires power and returns to Wuthering Heights with money and the trappings of a
gentleman. It corresponds with the ambivalence the upper classes felt toward lower-class
citizens, but feared the prospect of the lower classes trying to escape their miserable
circumstances by acquiring political, social, cultural or economic power.
Edgar Linton serves as Heathcliffs foil. He is born and raised a gentleman, is graceful, wellmannered and instilled with civilized virtues. But these gentlemanly qualities ultimately prove
useless in his ensuing rivalry with Heathcliff. Edgar was described as a spoiled child and his
refinement is tied to his helplessness and impotence. Heathcliffs vengeance and his nave
believe on his dead bed in his daughters safety and happiness, make him a weak, if sympathetic,
character.

Reference list:

Ciugureanu Adina, Victorian Selves (A study in the Literature of the Victorian Age), Bucharest,
Credis, 2001.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/wuthering/
http://www.e-scoala.ro/engleza/bronte_heights.html