Pennine Landscapes in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights

Abstract

Abstract This article proposes that Charlotte and Emily attached similar values to the Pennine landscapes they knew at home and in the Yorkshire Dales. At home they knew the heather-clad, gritstone moorland of the southern Pennines. At school they lived among the limestone crags of the northern Pennines around Cowan Bridge. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte presented both western Pennine landscapes, the limestone north and the moorland south, in a natural sequence created by the heroine's journeys. In Wuthering Heights, the two landscapes appear in the same place: the southern Pennine moorland appears as a dreamlike overlay or magic carpet in the second half of the novel, transforming the limestone landscape which is defined in the first half. Both sisters associated the limestone north with betrayal and death, and the southern moorland with regeneration in the individual and society.