The Romantic period was a time of experimentation and stretching of the novel. The novel often proved plain, familiar, and uninviting because of the strict adherence to common life. Novelists were inspired more so by poets and playwrights than other novelists (Romantic Period, The). This allowed for more freedom and expansion into emotional intensity. Writers dared to explore emotions, the imagination, and dreams. Their willingness to experiment created the expansion from realism into something of much more depth. In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte combines the romantic and realistic styles illustrating the romantic and realistic elements through nature, her characters, and the supernatural. The use of romance and realism in the novel also affect the reader's impressions and reactions, as well as the meaning of the work.
             One of Bronte's significant romantic elements is her return to nature and her use of setting. The Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange estates are also effectively used to reflect the certain types of people who reside in them. The Wuthering Heights' dark and oppressive state adds on to Hindley's already existing agony from his wife's death and further encourages his isolation from the outside world. The somber state of the Heights also reflects Heathcliff's brutal behavior to those around him. Thrushcross Grange, however, is much more light and airy. So even after Catherine's death, Edgar's sadness was not increased because of the pleasant atmosphere that his daughter brought. Through these two settings, Emily Bronte shows the element of romanticism through the return to nature. The Wuthering Heights estate was built strong to defend itself against the wind. Here, Bronte uses the wind, an element of nature, to show its romantic symbolic function. The wind is constantly blowing in and out through Wuthering Heights just like those who have lived at the Heights have...