Narration in Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is praised and celebrated for many reasons, including for its unique narrative style. It is told by Mr. Lockwood, the current tenant of Thrushcross Grange, who commissions his housekeeper Nelly Dean to tell him the story of his neighbours at Wuthering Heights. He records her stories in his diary, which forms the great majority of the novel. While Nelly Dean and Lockwood are the principal narrators, there are brief interruptions by other characters, including Isabella, Zillah and Joseph. With this narrative style employed by Bronte in the novel, some special dangers and disadvantages inevitably emerge. The story is told often at second or third hand by Nelly, and her accuracy in recalling dialogue from the past is questionable; both narrators possess biases and limitations; and finally the story is recounted out of chronological order, and consists of stories within stories. There are also advantages to this notably that this intricate style provokes interest, as well as evokes suspense in the novel. It is seen that the story is never directly narrated through the perspective of a participant in the novel. Instead, it is told in diary entries and recorded memories of conversat
Another disadvantage to this narrative style are biases and limitations that both Nelly and Lockwood possess. Nelly Dean is not the perfect narrator, because as she tells her story, she reveals a clear personal preference for certain characters over others. Although Nelly tries to remain fair, and often acts as the bridge between Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, her biases are made obvious from the beginning of the novel. She refers to the Lintons as "us" and "we", indicating her closeness and loyalty to them: " . . . and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of us - I mean of the Lintons." Nelly makes the error of referring to herself as one of the Lintons, illustrating her devotion and bond to them. Because she embodies "Thrushcross Grange" qualities, such as being respectful, having sensibility, piety, and being proper, she may wrongfully and harshly judge those at the Heights. It is noticed that she is especially harder on the older Catherine than most readers are. This is mostly because she had developed a dislike for her because of her cruel, selfish actions, an example being when Catherine came to her looking for advice about marrying Edgar. Nelly questioned her motives and put her down for being materialistic: "You love Mr. Edgar because he is handsome, young, and cheerful, loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing - you would love him without that probably; and with it you wouldn't, unless he possessed the four former attractions." Her bias towards Catherine could badly influence the reader when formulating opinions on her character. Nelly's biases are balanced by the intelligence of the reader, as they take her position into consideration. ion, often at second or third hand. When Nelly Dean recounts the story of Wuthering Heights to Lockwood, she is recalling conversations from many years ago. It seems improbable that she should recall these dialogues verbatim after a period of almost twenty three years, and perhaps she may have em
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Approximate Word count = 1343
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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