Wuthering Heights.

Many critics have said that Emily Bronte infuses a unique theme of calm vs. storm throughout her novel, Wuthering Heights. To show this unique clash of elemental forces as best as she can, Bronte utilizes her setting, her character’s relationships, and even the individual characters themselves.
First, Emily Bronte portrays her setting with contrasting sides to help support her theme of wild vs. tame. The first example she uses is the two houses- Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. In the novel, Thrushcross Grange is the home of the Lintons. Now the Lintons are one of the most mannerly, polite, kind, and shy families that someone could ever meet. The Earnshaws, on the other hand, live at Wuthering Heights and they are crazy, unkempt, greedy, and wild. Bronte uses these two households to highlight the complete difference that exists between the two environments and therefore the two families But it’s not just the houses the Bronte uses to set her setting. She also uses the land itself. Both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange are totally isolated by the outside world for they are surrounded by miles and miles of wild, uncontrollable, and even dangerous moors. However, if the reader were to use their own knowledge of the outside world he would remember that it is neat, tidy, fertilized, and well looked after. Bronte uses this comparison to help the reader see just how different the two houses are from the regular world. This comparison also helps to explain why some of the characters act as strangely and inhumanely as they do. Overall, Bronte does use the theme of wild vs. calm by having extreme comparisons in her setting. She then goes a step further by using it to help define and really characterize her characters.
Secondly, it’s not just the setting the Bronte tends to show the separate sides of. Bronte uses many of her character’s relationships to highlight this extreme theme as well. For instance, take Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton. In their relationship, Catherine is proud, haughty, violent, and controlling. Edgar on the other hand, is meek, loving, caring, and basically harmless. Anther example is Heathcliff and Isabella Linton. Heathcliff is angry, aggressive, domineering, and seemingly unstoppable whereas Isabella is weak, dependent, yielding, and totally infatuated with Heathcliff despite his many obvious flaws. As one can see, each person in these relationships, tend to take on the extreme qualities on the house they came from. Even, the younger Catherine Linton and her cousin Hareton Earnshaw display some of the qualities common to their individual families. It wasn’t until the end of the book, when both of these lovers managed to overcome their extreme personality differences, that they finally had the happy, romantic ending that the older couples never had. So in conclusion, Bronte does put her character together in a way that uses her character’s differing personalities to foil each other. This then helped to widen the gap further between the contrasting households.
However, one of the most extreme things that Bronte resorts to in order to ensure that her theme of calm vs. storm is complete, is to create characters with completely conflicting personalities as well. First, Bronte create Catherine Earnshaw. While growing up Cathy is rude, volatile, spoiled, and undisciplined. However she goes to Thrushcross Grange for a few weeks and comes back a seemingly different person: she’s mannerly, quiet, and very kind and friendly. It isn’t until later when the reader sees her boxing Edgar’s ears out of frustration and anger, that they realize that she hasn’t in fact at all. She’s just got these two very different personalities from which she changes back and forth at will. She’s not the only on though. Nelly, the female servant who narrates the novel and who bounces from house to house also has qualities that don’t match up. At first, whenever she’s with her master Nelly is a very polite, loyal, and faithful servant, appearing to do whatever she can to benefit the master and his family. However, when the reader sees her interacting with the younger generation (the ones she takes care of) they see a completely different side of her. With the kids like Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and even Catherine Linton, Nelly acts dishonestly and manipulatively, drawing on her own power as servant to act as God (uses her opinion to determine what’s right and wrong) in the household. For example, she tells Catherine to grow up already and treat Heathcliff with respect and he acts as matchmaker to get Heathcliff with Catherine and later on Lockwood with the younger Catherine. As one can see, Bronte uses the conflicting sides of her characters to solidify the presence of her theme of wild vs. calm and to make her characters more relatable to her readers.
All in all, Emily Bronte does write her novel to portray a strong clash of elemental forces (the theme of calm vs. storm). To help her get the theme through to her readers, she utilizes the contrasting sides of her setting, her character’s relationships, and her character’s themselves.