Nature Imagery and Figurative Language in WutheringHeights
Page numbers are the Bantam paperback and Norton Critical 2nd ed. respectively
p. 65/64“The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley . . .”
Who is compared to the “bleak, hilly, coal country”?
Who is compared to the beautiful, fertile valley”?
What is the purpose of the simile?
p. 67/66“. . . he possessed the power to depart, as much as a cat possesses the power to leave the mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten.”
To whom does “he” refer?
Why does ‘he’ lack the “power to depart”?
What is the purpose of the comparison?
p. 75/72“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”
Who is the speaker?
Who is represented by the moonbeam and frost?
Who is represented by the lightning and fire?
Discuss the effectiveness of this comparison.
p. 77/74“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”
Explain this comparison in psychological terms.
p. 86/81“It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckle, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.”
Who are the honeysuckles?
Who is the thorn?
Explain the purpose of this metaphor.
pp.176/154“And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it.”
Who is the speaker?
Who is the wind?
Who is the crooked tree? How does the connotation of the words “crooked” and “twist” add to the effectiveness of the metaphor?
p.178/155“That capacity for intense attachments reminded me of her mother: still she did not resemble her; for she could be soft and mild as a dove.”
To whom does “she” refer?
Why is “dove” an appropriate comparison?
To what animal could her mother be compared? Why?
p.185/161“I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed. Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under favourable circumstances.”
Who is being described?
What doe “physiognomy” mean?
What does this scene foreshadow?
p. 206/178“Don’t you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? Almost as proud as I am of mine. But there’s a difference: one is gold put to use of paving stones, and the other tin polished to ape a service of silver.”
Who is the gold?
Who is the tin?
Who manipulates the gold and tin and to what end?
p. 213/183“Never did any bird flying back to a plundered nest which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more complete despair in its anguished cries and flutterings, than by her single ‘Oh!’ and the change that transfigured her happy countenance.”
Who is the bird?
To what is the “plundered nest” analogous?
Discuss the effectiveness of this comparison.