There is also a clear gender difference between the two. The phallic image of Wuthering Heights with it’s “jutting stones” and hardened, bare appearance compares drastically with the femininity of the Grange-a more civilized and pretty building. “Peniston Crag” also represents the masculinity of the Wuthering Heights environment. One cannot avoid the reference to penis, and its clear suggestion of something that is definitely male. However as well as this it is a reference to Heathcliff himself. He is a man often described in elemental terms, and in chapter 18 the Crag is described as attractive to the young Cathy especially when “…the setting sun shone on it”. This fits with Heathcliff’s “anti-hero” status, something that is somehow attractive despite all of its ugliness, (in his case of character) prefab houseand bluntness. Setting is a vehicle for such ideas in Wuthering Heights. The opposing houses and places like “Peniston Crag” allow characters to be more defined, and ideas surrounding them (for example Heathcliff’s extreme masculinity) more developed.

The stark difference in setting between the two places allows for the transformation of Catherine. When she spends a lot of time at “The Grange” she matures and becomes a woman, indeed Hindley remarks on her return that “You look like a woman now”. Catherine has been changed dramatically due to uprooting and physically moving. In contrast Nora’s transformation comes from her prolonged stay in a specific environment, as opposed to a change emerging from moving. Therefore, In Cathy’s situation, it can be said that a higher social standing does not always reap benefits, her transformation torments Heathcliff and there becomes a distance between the two that was not present before.

Bronte is saying then that however rich or reputable one can become, such things are not the “be all and end all”, and certainly are no match for true feeling and love. Of course their story ends in tragedy with both of them dying in very unhappy circumstances-a fitting end to such and allegory movable house . But love does succeed in the end with the marriage of Cathy and Hareton. That was something that flourished out of the young Cathy’s willingness to teach Hareton to read-an act that would no have occurred if she had been prejudiced towards Hareton because of his lower social standing. Just as the old Cathy married Edgar arguably because of his social position, the young Cathy married despite Hareton’s, and so the injustice is eventually reversed. In the case of “A Doll’s House” the comment on the social situation of the time is that the desire to become more than you are leads to emotional distance or even separation.