Wuthering Heights Essay
Many novelists display various forms of imagery to create the mood or atmosphere they seek. Some authors personify nature and its surroundings, while others describe a character and his belongings. In Emily Bronte's novel, Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean, the housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange, acts as guardian and compassionate figure to Cathy Linton, the daughter of Edgar and the late Catherine Linton. Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw's adopted child, disappears after Catherine insults him, but returns shortly after Edgar and Catherine's marriage. The young and naive Cathy Linton falls in love with Linton, Heathcliff and Isabella's child, who resides at Wuthering Heights, despite the objections and warnings of Nelly Dean and Edgar. During these shadowy and foolish events, Bronte intertwines moon imagery to demonstrate the lunacy of these actions. By examining Heathcliff's return, Cathy's return from Wuthering Heights, and before her meeting with Linton, the reader sees that Bronte associates moon imagery during these furtive events to reveal the lunacy in a character's actions.
Bronte joins moon imagery with the mysterious return of Heathcliff to Wuthering Heights. After Nelly Dean returns from picking apples, she meets a secretive man at the entrance of Thrushcross Grange and recognizes him as Heathcliff. Bronte describes the moon as looking over the court and causing vague shadows. "It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projections portions of the buildingÂ… my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance." (93) Heathcliff conceals the reason for his return to seek revenge on his childhood enemies, from the tenants of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. He will stop at nothing to pain Hindley and Edgar, and their loved ones. Bronte's description of the moon, and the moon's obscure power over Nelly, parallels the shadowy and crazy actions of...
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