This very ardour, rejecting half shades and other minor impediments, wings its way past the daily conduct of ordinary people and allies itself with their more inarticulate passions. It makes them poets, or, if they choose to write in prose, intolerant of its restrictions. Hence it is that both Emily and Charlotte are always invoking the help of nature. They both feel the need of some more powerful symbol of the vast and slumbering passions in human nature than words or actions can convey.[1]

Though the past researches on natural scenes in Wuthering Heights at home and abroad are numerous, there still exist some problems. The first problem is that a large percent of papers about natural scenes is related with the imagery from the perspective of symbolism. These papers usually focus on one or several imagery in the novel, and there is no reasonable relation between each other. As a result, without developing a systematic theory, these papers are not only separated in the essay itself, but also isolated from  

each other. The second problem is that the researches on the relationship between natural scenes and other elements in the novel are not so many that people can find relevant references easily and quickly. The last problem is that natural scenes are actually a little neglected by scholars, for most scholars pay their attention to the feminism and religious meanings in the novel.

As a result, the essay is trying to solve these mentioned problems, focusing on natural scenes in Wuthering Heights, through analyzing the features of typical natural scenes and two main places as well as the relations between natural scenes and different themes of the novel, eventually explaining the effects of natural scenes systematically and comprehensively.

Chapter I The Features of Typical Natural Scenes

There are a wide range of natural scenes in Wuthering Heights, and it is easy to find that there are some typical and representative natural scenes which almost could remind of people immediately when these scenes are mentioned. Through describing perse natural scenes, Emily creates a new world for readers. Readers can reach the summits of emotion not by exaggerated or unruly words but by hearing a little girl sing old songs to herself swaying in the branches of a tree; by watching the sheep in the moor eat the grass; by listening to the breeze blowing through the grass. Natural scenes in this novel are not just decorations of a dull page or demonstrations of the author’s observation, they are actually the aspects of the earth which are closest to the feelings of Emily or her characters, and they pass on the emotion and lighten the meaning of the novel. As a result, natural scenes are beneficial for us to get a better understanding of the novel, thus it is of great importance to know their features well. 

The most typical and representative natural scenes in the novel include the moors, the storm, as well as the tree, which are important and dispensable parts in the novel. To varying degrees, these natural scenes are helpful to develop the perse themes of the novel. Take the moors as an example, it is the overall environment where stories happen, so it lays a solid foundation of the keynote of Wuthering Heights. As the moors is throughout in the novel from the beginning to the end, it expresses naturally and obviously the theme about the author’s obsession of the nature. In terms of the storm, it helps to create exciting atmospheres and plots, thus it shows the strong power of the nature and the author’s love to the nature. As for the tree, it has its own symbolic meaning that the tree is the men, so it demonstrates the theme about the fierce and tough struggle between human beings and the nature. Serving for different themes, these typical  natural scenes are so impressive and important that they are worth to be analyzed independently and profoundly.