Compare and contrast the architecture and buildings of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

1. The buildings are very different.

2. These differences reflect the differences of the people who live in each house.

3. But it is not as simple as this. Different characters live at different times in each house. Lockwood travels to Wuthering Heights and in one of the earliest scenes provokes violence and fury from Juno. On his second visit in his dream we hear he has scraped a girls wrist across the broken glass in the window frame.

Later when Cathy and Heathcliff visit Thrushcross Grange as children they (and we) see from the outside what life on the inside is like. It appears to be homely and welcoming.. but in fact Isabella and Linton are fighting violently over the ownership of a puppy.

4. The obvious contrasts between the two houses become more complex as the novel progresses. There is a sense in the novel that the environment of each conditions how the characters think, feel and behave, and that as characters move between the houses Bronte details shifts in their state of mind. There are elements common to both houses. The question of property and ownership becomes more important.

5. Emily Bronte is exploring a debate about the impact of nature on human character that had started, perhaps, with Rousseaus idea of the noble savage and was being explored throughout what we now call the Romantic period (1770 c1840).

6. The landscape and architecture of the novel become a reflection of the characters state of mind. Each building is at different times a projection of the mood, dispositions and temperament of those that live in it. In her use of landscape and environment Bronte is developing ideas widely discussed in the Romantic period. The paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, for example, touch very clearly on the idea of the landscape of the mind.

7. However, simple distinctions are too easily made. It is clear from the beginning that Heathcliff is the owner of both properties. To some extent therefore we might say the two houses reflect the two aspects of Heathcliffs mind.. We also hear in the second half of the novel that the younger generation tame Wuthering Heights and transform it into what seems to be a very different place.

8. Or perhaps Emily Bronte is suggesting the two buildings reflect the inner tensions and complexities of anyones mind, of the human mind or the human condition. How do we resolve the tension within us of passion, desire, jealousy and raw emotion on the one hand, and polite, calm, sociability on the other. The tension within us between our social obligations and our natural instincts is always present The two buildings (or sets of buildings) are reflections of the tensions within Lockwood and perhaps within ourselves.

9. More interestingly perhaps both Cathy and Heathcliff ultimately crave to escape from all buildings. The happiness of a number of characters is felt out on the moors away from the buildings, at Penistone Crags or in the hollows on the moorland watching butterflies.

Critical Views Contemporary reviews (1847/1848): www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/reviews.php Gilbert S, and Gubar, S: The Madwoman in the Attic especially Chapter 8 Wheelan, P: Crossing the Boundaries in Wuthering Heights a response to Gilbert and Gubar. http://www2.unca.edu/postscript/postscript9/ps9.2a.pdf