Explain why Wuthering Height's (the castle/house) is called that.

Question

Trying to answer a short essay question for Literature.

Answer 1

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is named after the Yorkshire manor on the moors. In the native Yorkshire dialect, "wuthering" means turbulent weather.

Symbolically, "wuthering" would also refer to the stormy romantic relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, which was doomed to failure from the beginning because Heathcliff is actually Catherine's brother (by adoption). The novel's plot dramatically portrays their tempestuous relationship and its inherent frustrations and failure.

Good luck with your essay! Hope this helped.

Answer 2

Gary Dexter investigates Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Emily Brontë explained the origin of the word 'wuthering' in the novel itself:

'Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr Heathcliffe's dwelling. "Wuthering" being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed, in stormy weather.'

Wuthering means windy, then. But is there more to it?

According to Emily's biographer Winifred Gérin, the author based Heathcliffe's dwelling on a local Elizabethan farmhouse, Top Withins.

This must surely have been a crucial influence on the name of house and novel, 'Top' suggesting 'Heights' and 'Withins' suggesting 'Wuthering'.

'Withins' is in fact a Yorkshire word for 'willows' (it seems that Emily was inspired by nothing less than the wind in the willows), and even today the proper exclamation to make when seeing a particularly well-pollarded group of willows in the Haworth area is 'Top withins!'

Answer 3

"Wuthering" is of old Norse derivation ( check "online etymology dictionary"),meaning as described by Jonathan. Bronte likely spent a goodly while in consideration of a title that would have poetic cadence as well as being evocative as an image-maker. It certainly suggests a parallel between the natural forces of that landscape and the relationship that is pivotal to the novel. Would that she had lived long enough to see the critical acclaim and dramatic interpretations that followed a hundred years later.