In order to properly analyze the roles Nelly and Joseph play in Wuthering Heights, one must look at the social conditions of servants during the time the novel was written and takes place. Since the 1780s when a tax was imposed on all male domestic servants to encourage men to go into the army, most servants in a household were often women. In an upper class household, there was often a hierarchy between the servants themselves. One servant, who has often been with the family for a number of years (in the case of Wuthering Heights, Nell

Moss, Joyce and Lorraine Valestuk. World Literature and its Times- British and Irish Literature and its Times. Vol 3. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001

out the superfluous turmoil of the political and social change of the time. With the use of such isolation, the stagnant air of Wuthering Heights and the clownish red velvet of the Grange, Bronte aims to preserve the tiny world she has created to give it a slightly magical and story-like feel. The fixed positions of the servants may work to amplify the message Bronte wishes to carry across.

te the fact that he originally was an orphan found on a Liverpool street. Heathcliff is able to go around financial limitations to acquire for himself a name in society through the means of this "new money."

range of positions that the servants held-there were "upper" servants such as a butler, footman, governess, skilled cook, housekeeper, senior parlor-maid, head house-maid and lady's maid, as well as the 'lower' servants including kitchen-maid, scullery-maid, laundress, nursemaid, housemaid, stable-boy etc. (Wojtczak 2000) Job advertisements were often placed in small town newspapers or "word" was left through the local post office about an available position where workers often knew to enquire about job opportunities.

The increasing social mobility that came with the period seems to pass over Wuthering Heights-- Nelly stays with the family for years, while nationwide, innumerable opportunities for social advancement arise because of the changing social and economic situation. One would like to think that when working on an as a grand a work as Wuthering Heights, Bronte would be accurate enough to echo the surrounding political happenings in her novel. Characters like Lockwood, who is an outsider to the narrow world of the Moors, or Heathcliff in his mysterious travels in acquiring his fortune, would be forces that bring social change to this community. Since this is not the case, and the community does not seem to be impacted, one is only left to assume that Bronte purposely isolates the Moors, namely Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, from the bustle of the outside British society. She seeks to aim the focus of her audience on the passion and conflict of her characters, with!

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y), made sure the household was running smoothly and was often more educated that the rest: "I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of..." (62) Others were often the children of poor farmers or landless peasants who were forced to go into servitude for lack of education and/or better employment opportunities. (Cannon

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1857
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)