Nature In Wuthering Heights Essay

An Ecocritical reading of Wuthering Heights might focus on how Emily Brontë explores ecological values and the association of a character’s behaviour with the ascendancy of their surrounding environment. A central theme of ecology in the novel provides an evident “relation between living things and their environment” and an exploration of “the study of the earth as our home” . In the same way, Brontë’s residence in the isolated village of Haworth on the Yorkshire Moors, and her close connection to this landscape, directly influenced her writing. The sole world she knew became the setting for her the only novel. Ecocriticism deals with the earth’s presence ‘being central to literary readings’ , therefore it appears to be a useful lens through

With this, readers see how Brontë’s work handles the topic of nature. In the first two chapters of the novel, Bronte makes us aware of the neglected grounds of Wuthering Heights with its ‘desolation’ and it being ‘so completely removed from the stir of society’, this provides us with gothic imagery. These descriptions connote segregation, within both the house itself and the owner Heathcliff, therefore we notice an allusion to Heathcliff being an ‘outsider’. ‘Misty and cold’ helps to depict the enigmatic setting, along with the focus on the inner psychology of characters’ lives. Here, ‘environmental preoccupations’ monopolise the novel’s setting. In the immediate introduction of the protagonist, the ‘cold’ behaviour is evident with the abrupt and rude welcome to Lockwood, the new tenant of Wuthering Heights. Lockwood addresses Heathcliff as ‘Sir’ and ‘Mr’ and continues in a polite manner. The sophisticated language Brontë applies to the character of Lockwood aims to reflect the different worlds the two have been accustomed to through this contrasting dialogue. As well as reflecting the different social spheres to which they belong, given that ‘ecological criticism sees human culture as being crucially connected to the non-human world’