How Does Bronte Create Atmosphere and Suspense in Ch3 of Wuthering Heights

How does Brontë create atmosphere and suspense in chapter 3 of Wuthering Heights?

Emily Brontë creates atmosphere and suspense using her own artistic techniques, one method that she uses is palimpsestic which is narratives within narratives. This is Emily’s only novel, it is an extraordinarily powerful and disturbing tale of the tempestuous relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff. From the start of the chapter, Brontë begins building suspense. After Lockwood has retired to his bed, he has several puzzling and uncomfortable experiences. For example,

‘Writing scratched on the paint repeated in all kinds of characters large and small - Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton’

This quote builds on prior knowledge of the mysterious ‘Catherine’. This is Lockwood’s first encounter with her and it is the same for the reader. The fact that the words are scratched into the wood is an indicator of Catherine’s frame of mind. This could be said to be confused, isolated, unhappy and slightly obsessive. The reader is instantly engaged and wondering why it is there and what it can signify. The atmosphere is already tense and spooky, and these scratchings add to this. The fact that we meet Catherine in ‘words’ (scratchings and a diary) is an indicator of how important both Brontë and the people in the 19th century viewed the power of the written word. It was seen as the highest form of art and a direct link between the authors mind and the readers understanding. It is a clever plot which will only be understood when the reader gets to the end of the novel. It is tricky to derive who the author wants you to sympathise with. The pendulum swings both ways, you could sympathise with Heathcliff because he had an undying love for Catherine and she never really knew about it, and he still does love her. Although at first we view Heathcliff as a ‘pitiless, wolfish man’ who is bitter and resentful of life because of his up bringing which was being beaten by Hindley, Catherine’s older brother. Or you could sympathise with Catherine, who really did love Heathcliff but was so wrapped up in her own little world of being a lady, rich and having fancy parties thought that it degrade her to marry Heathcliff as he was called a ‘Gypsy’. Personally I would sympathise with Heathcliff who’s love for Catherine is extremely obvious but she can’t see it and ends up marrying Edgar Linton. Who is rich, respected and will provide her with a home, money etc.

Throughout the chapter the atmosphere builds up even more. After Lockwood has seen the names he starts to fall asleep and has yet another unpleasant encounter with Catherine.

‘In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw – Heathcliff – Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark as vivid as spectres.’

The author has said this to suggest many things, this is our second encounter with Catherine but this time it is not in words but as a ghost. It is significant that we first see her as a child, as this is Heathcliff’s happiest memory of her. It is a turning point in the plot as after this the story turns towards different characters and a different time. It is significant that Lockwood is in the limbo between being awake and being asleep. Indeed he carries through his working thoughts into his dream, from the diary he has been reading Catherine as a child appears to him. It is unclear whether he is awake or asleep. The author says this to illustrate the minds state whilst sleeping and how you carry thoughts into dreams. By having a diary, Catherine is preserving her childhood when she was happy and mischievous. Having a diary could be used to compare how she changed if she’d kept a diary when she was married etc. it might be slightly disturbing and obsessive just like when she scratched her name into the wood. Catherine continuously appears in this novel as unhappy, distraught except when she is a child and is with Heathcliff and in his memories of her. Books appear frequently in this novel, they are associated with education and culture, we are told the Heathcliff never reads, Catherine gets her education from books and although Heathcliff tries to keep up with her in her studies he cant and eventually gives up all together trying to impress her and be like Edgar Linton.

In his second dream, Lockwood tries to the tree knocking by breaking the window. To his horror, his hand is grasped by icy fingers, and a voice, calling itself Catherine Linton, ask to be let in. Desperately, he rubs the wrist on the broken glass until it lets go.

‘I must stop it, nevertheless!’ I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch: instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me; I tried to draw back my arm, but, the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, ‘Let me in – let me in!’ ‘Who are you?’ I asked, struggling, meanwhile to disengage myself. ‘Catherine Linton,’ it replied, shiveringly ( why did I think of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton). ‘I’ come home, I’d lost my way on the moor!’ As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the window – terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bed-clothes: still it wailed, ‘Let me in!’ and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear.’

This is a rather long quote but there are key images in it. This is rather violent imagery towards a child. One of the key images is the window, windows suggest the of a barrier through which a character can see something which they may desire but from which they are separated. Although this is a dream it is almost tangible. The fact that the child (Catherine) has a tenacious gripe reflects that she wont let go unless she gets her way which is how Catherine was. Lockwood tries to dismiss his nightmare but as the book continues, it is suggested that the ghost is not just his imagination. At the end of the chapter Lockwood has difficultly finding his way home in the snow. He says he continually steered wrongly. This sums up his difficulties in judging characters and events in the last three chapters. Each character that Emily Brontë has created has their own unique narrative style for example Nelly Deans language is colloquial as she speaks to Lockwood and is full of idiomatic expressions and imagery. Nelly’s language can be vividly descriptive. Whereas Lockwood’s is an educated, literary language, precise in its description of what he sees. However, his style uses a lot of words of a Latin origin which can make him seem pompous and stuck up, he uses language to keep disturbing emotions at a distance. His language emphasises that, both in social and emotional terms, he is an outsider. Emily Brontë was persuaded by her sister Charlotte, they published a joint collection of poems, under the pen names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Wuthering Heights probably begun in autumn 1845, was published in December 1847. The reviews were mixed. The novel’s power and originality were recognised, but fault was found with its violence, coarse language, and apparent lack of moral. In 1848 Emily became ill she died on 19 December 1848 of consumption, with characteristic courage and independence of spirit. Charlotte wrote in the 1850 edition of Wuthering Heights:

Day by day, when I saw with what a front she met suffering, I looked on her with anguish of wonder and love. I have seen nothing like it; but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone.