Wuthering Heights is associated with the Earnshaws and the passionate Catherine and Heathcliff. Thrushcross Grange is the home of the refined and socially superior Lintons. The contrast with the neighbouring house, even though they are separated by only four miles, could not be greater. The vegetation is lush and beautiful and sheltered by the Grange's position. It is tucked away on lower ground.
The Grange is not as perfect as it may seem on the surface. Edgar and Isabella Linton are spoilt, silly and greatly concerned with superficial matters such as appearance. It is Catherine's great misfortune that she finds herself torn between her love for Heathcliff and her desire for the wealth and social position that goes with the position of lady of the house at Thrushcross Grange.
The Grange is also a place of boundaries and restrictions, surrounded by a high wall. When Catherine lies ill in bed at the Grange, all she wants is to return to her old home:
"Oh, dear! I thought I was at home," she sighed. "I thought I was lying in my chamber at Wuthering Heights." (Chapter 12)
and her daughter Cathy is forbidden to go beyond the boundary walls. If the residents of Wuthering Heights find themselves exposed, those of the Grange are overly sheltered from the realities of life.
The one place where characters are free to be themselves is out on the moors- Penistone Crags. This location is predominantly associated with Catherine and Heathcliff; young Cathy also shows her affinity with her mother through her yearning to escape the confinement of the Grange and run free on the moors. The imagery of these wild, rolling moors runs throughout the novel, finding perhaps its most famous expression in Catherine's metaphorical description of her love:
My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff.
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