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A+ essay exploring use of location in Mrs Dalloway and Wuthering Heights
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The essay is written for the prose comparison unit of English Literature. Explores location in both books.
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Wuthering Heights Literature Log
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Locations in WH and MDIn both Wuthering Heights and Mrs Dalloway, locations are used as symbols of past impulsivity and the
present expectations of obedience to authority. Bronte communicates this through Catherine's journey
from Wuthering Heights to the Grange and Woolf similarly uses Clarissa’s journey from Bourton to
London. What differentiates these two is that Bronte suggests a hope for change seen in the merging of
her two antithetical locations, whereas Woolf implies that neither the present nor the past can allow for
people to live as they please due to the judgemental nature of society. This could be represented by the
fact that Clarissa is unable to escape Peter Walsh’s prediction of her future as a hostess as well as the
presence of imperious buildings such as Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.
Thrushcross Grange holds authority over Catherine in the same way that Wuthering Heights holds
authority over Isabella. Wuthering Heights is presented as a place distanced from civility as “its entire
anatomy lay bare”, the chairs are “primitive” and there is constant reference to savagery and violence
around the house - “villainous old guns”, “pure, bracing ventilation”, a “wilderness”. This is naturally
where Catherine is able to be “wild” as her childhood environment is fostering this freedom. However,
Bronte makes it clear that this environment can simultaneously be restrictive, therefore enforcing her
amoral standpoint. She does this by making Isabella serve as Catherine’s foil. Thrushcross Grange is
“shimmering”, “a splendid place” with a glass chandelier, evidently more focused on appearance and
material wealth than Wuthering Heights is. Therefore, when Isabella is forced into Wuthering Heights,
she sees it as “a dingy, untidy hole”, an “inhospitable” place of “solitude”. Isabella is expected to be
Edgar’s “proxy in suffering” in this house, and Catherine is forced to fit into the role of Edgar’s wife even
though she is “a sea” that can’t be “readily contained in that horse-trough (Edgar)". Both have left their
childhood environments and are forced to adapt to the opposite of their ideals – savagery and civility –
forcing them to leave behind the way they used to live. Similarly, Clarissa undergoes a change from her
childhood country house (Bourton) to London city, the biggest city at the time, opposing New York.
Bourton is “sheltered”, potentially “stiff”, but simultaneously offers a Romantic sense of freedom,
Clarissa “plunged into the open air” there and “anything could happen”. It is where Clarissa experiences
her kiss with Sally Seton, “a diamond, something infinitely precious”. This moment is disturbed by Peter
Walsh, becoming “like running one's face against the granite wall in the darkness”. Woolf’s use of
diamond and granite creates a pronounced contrast, suggesting that Bourton offered Clarissa freedom
she could never have in the city, she was just interrupted. A difference between the two is that Bourton
itself is neither resolutely freeing nor restraining for Clarissa, unlike how Wuthering Heights is much less
restricting for young Catherine. This is because London offers the same potential for freedom as the
countryside. In Clarissa’s eyes at least, London can be made “every moment afresh”, it can be built
“round one”. The difference between Wuthering Heights and Mrs Dalloway is that the transition from
the childhood environment to the environment of adulthood causes adverse effects in Wuthering
Heights, meanwhile, these restrictive environments endure through all stages of life in Mrs Dalloway.
However, the drastic difference of freedom in childhood and adulthood in Wuthering Heights may be
due to the heavy limitations for women during the 19th century. For example, “Separate Spheres”
ideology and Coverture both contributed to many women being subservient to men and uninvolved in
the political sphere. This may have influenced Bronte in how she presented womanhood, particularly
married life, compared to childhood, where upper/middle class boys and girls were more equal in terms
of education and treatment.
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