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Attaining Superlative Heights in Narratology: Narrative Systems and Strategies in

Wuthering Heights
By Divya Thyagarajan, Madras Christian College.
Abstract: The uniqueness of the narrative of Wuthering Heights has been the
centre of argument for literary critics, for over a century and it enables one to
study it from different angles. This assignment argues that the narrative
structure of Wuthering Heights is layered rather than linear because the
story reaches the readers after a rigorous session of editing and rephrasing, by
several narrators. This renders it a folkloric attribute because there is no
authentic authorial voice to make the readers think in a particular way. The
main narrators of the story are two peripheral characters Nelly and
Lockwood. Lockwood becomes the frame narrator and Nelly becomes the
interpolated narrator who could also be considered as fallible or unreliable
(thus rendering Lockwoods version also unreliable). Lockwoods intellectual
and pedantic perception and Nellys sentimental and Victorian perception of
the events and situations in Wuthering Heights render them virtually unstable
or incapacitated to fathom the psychological depth and character of the
protagonists. By transferring a given narrative from teller to teller the novel
creates a disjunction of voices which results in the dispossession of the
narrative. This leads to the loss of the source of the story thereby inscribing
the absence of a narrative centre. But, such a blurring between the speaker
and the listener is the starting point of interpretation and analysis. Through her
style, Bronte challenges the norms of narratology that existed during her time.

Keywords: Narratology, analepsis, prolepsis, reporting, description,

dispossession of narrative.

M.H. Abrams defines narratology as one dealing with:

Types of narrators, the identification of structural elements and their
diverse modes of combination, recurrent narrative devices, and the
analysis of the kinds of discourse by which a narrative gets told, as
well as with the narratethat is, the explicit or implied person or
audience to whom the narrator addresses the narrative. (Abrams and
Harpham 182).
Therefore along with exposition, argumentation, description & c, narration, broadly defined
is one of the four rhetorical modes of discourse.
The narrative of Wuthering Heights has been the centre of argument of literary critics
for over a century. The historical design of the novels structure and its futuristic narrative
method produces a unique work of genius, which enables the readers to understand the text
from different angles.
The complexities that arise while interpreting the narrative structure of Wuthering
Heights is mainly because of the fact that its style is layered rather than linear. Therefore
to comprehend such a narrative it is important to define the point of view through which a
narrative is perceived.
point of view signifies the way a story gets toldthe mode (or modes)
established by an author by means of which the reader is presented

with the characters, dialogues, actions, setting and events which

constitute a narrative in a work of fiction. (Abrams and Harpham 233)
The narrations in Wuthering Heights are sieved and sifted in such a way that the story
itself reaches the readers after a rigorous session of editing and rephrasing. This renders it a
folkloric attribute. Nevertheless, Bronte, by using the method of layering maintains a
balance between the various points of view and the narrative structure. Therefore, she
provides a three-dimensional view of the narrative and renders the structure of the narrative
dynamic because there is no all-powerful omniscient narrator to guide the readers to think in
a particular way. The absence of an authoritative narrator who instructs the readers, accounts
for the diversity of criticism on Wuthering Heights. Therefore, Emily Bronte, through her
novel, challenges the norms of narratology that existed during her time.
The narrative in Wuthering Heights: its structure and significance.
In his book S/Z (1970), Roland Barthes introduced two different types of texts: the
readerly and the writerly. He defines the readerly or classic text as: ..basically subject to
the logico-temporal order and sets forth the end of every action (conclusion, interruption,
closure, denouement) (Barthes 52). On the other hand:
The writerly text is a perpetual present, upon which no consequent language
(which would inevitably make it past) can be super imposed; the writerly text
is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world (the world as
function) is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some singular
system (Ideology, genus, criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances
the opening of networks, the infinity of languages. (Barthes 5)
Wuthering Heights comes under the category of a writerly text because the texts unity is
forever being re-established by its composition; it is a text which cannot be codified because

the action of the writer/narrator could be re-enacted by perceiving the narrative through
different angles. Such an active effort, allows the reader to break out of his/her subject
position because he/she can no more be the passive responder of a single authoritative voice.
Hence, an air of mystery is created by Brontes intricate narrative structure.
The events of the story are related to the readers by Lockwood, the tenant of
Thrushcross Grange, who records the events that he hears from Nelly Dean, an old servant at
the Heights. Rather than witnessing these events first hand, the reader only learns them after
they have been filtered through the views of two peripheral characters; Lockwood modifies
Nellys views who herself has further modified it by gathering information from a variety of
other sources. Within the text, the persons and events overlap continuously and the book
involves repeating cycles and recurring patterns.
As a result, Lockwood and Nelly are narrators who are not mechanically and
omnisciently detached but emotionally and subjectively attached, with respect to the
narration. Thus the readers must form his/her own opinion of the events and characters that
constitute Wuthering Heights. Ergo, Eagleton calls the narrative structure of Wuthering
Heights as, Chinese boxes narrative structurein which one potentially unreliable narrative
is embedded within another not entirely trust worthy one, and that perhaps (is) within
another.. (this method) places any assured assessment beyond our reach. (136)
Although the novel begins at a point (nearly) where all events come to an end, a
variety of narrative and literary devices are used in order to reconstruct the past events of
the story. The spacio-temporal shifts and the subjective narration of both Nelly Dean and
Lockwood render the structure of the narrative layered and lays it open to multiple
perspectives.

The narrative systems in Wuthering Heights operate through a meta-structure: a

story within another story, and this inter-relationship is given by Golban:
Mr.Lockwood a minor character in the narrative assumes firstly the
position of the homodigenic narrator 1 (N1), apparently a distant
observer who voice does not express the authors omniscient point of
view; he addresses directly, the receiver of literary discourse whom I
regard as a real reader (RR). Narration/follows its logical temporal and
special movement until Nelly Dean starts her own narrative
presentation. She becomes the homodigenic narrator 2 (N2),
expressing an omniscient point of view to a fictitious reader (FR2)
whom I consider narrator/, now the direct receiver of the literary
message and its means of transmission to the real reader. The
concentric general narrative structure of the novel contains also a third
narration of the narrator/ (Lockwood), in between narration2 another
narration 4 of narrator 2 (Nelly Dean ) who moves back in time to the
renders the representation of events till the actual ending of the novel.
The events allow the representation of the culmination of the second
process of development and formation, which is one the younger Cathy
and Hareton
N1--------Narration1 -----RR
N2---------Narration2 FR (N1)-----RR
N1---------Narration3----RR
N2--------Narration4------FR (N1). (Golban 183-184)
The above mentioned system of analyzing the narrative structure of the novel shows us how
the storyline itself has to pass a number of filters before it reaches the actual readers.

Therefore, the end output, which forms the novel, is significantly altered. These levels mark
the embedding of one narration within another in the texts main linear narrative and
complicate the relationship of the narrator and the temporal re-arrangement of events for
plotting and narration.
Literary devices used in Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte obstructs the unidirectional flow by retrieving past time, redeeming it,
recalling it, and making it once again present. Such temporal reversals operate through
techniques like backward ordering, time shifting, layering, repetition and so on.
The Narrative (or recite or discourse) of the diary begins in 1801 and ends a year later
in 1802, whereas the story of Heathcliff and the Earnshaws spans the period 1757-1802.
Within this frame Bronte uses a number of narrative tools and devices to elevate an ordinary
story to an extraordinary level. Wuthering Heights follows the epic model by beginning the
novel in media res, and brings about a doubleness of beginning. We first read Lockwoods
diary entry/ entries describing his encounters with the mysterious world of Wuthering
Heights, one of which contains a recollected portion of the dead character Catherine
Earnshaws diary, and only then, after Lockwood returns to his rented country house,
Thrushcross Grange, does he seek an explanation from the housekeeper Nelly Dean. At this
juncture, she moves back in time, but renders her story sequential and linear. Thus most of
the novel consists of an extended Analepsis (a flash-back or time-shift backward).
Therefore, the novel, as Deborah Jenson in The Encyclopedia of the Novel (Vol.1,2) points
out, recounts previous events in more or less calendric sequence in order to answer the
suspended question of how things came to be the way they are in 1801(Logan 812).
The first analepsis of Wuthering Heights is when Lockwood records (in chapter 3)
his reading of Catherines diary; herein he encounters the following lines,

Poor Heathcliff! Hindely calls him a vagabond, and wont let him sit with us, nor eat
with us anymore; and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn
him out of the house if we break his orders. (Bronte 17)
But the incident recounted in Catherines dairy is simultaneously proleptic ( a
literary device in which a future event is pre-figured); in terms of narrative order it also
anticipated an incident that the readers will encounter three chapter later when Nellys
narrative reaches the same point in the story: He (Hindley) drove him (Heathcliff) from their
company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he
should labour out of doors instead (Bronte 38).
Wuthering Heights also gives us a prominent instance of paralepsis and epilepsis
which Genette defines as the omission at the narrative level of a link in the story chain,
leading to a noticeable gap in the sequence (Logan 815). For instance, Heathcliff leaves
Wuthering Heights in 1780 as a poor farm boy and returns to the neighborhood in 1783 as a
rich man, but there is no account of how this change occurred. Furthermore, the appearance
of Catherines ghost in Lockwoods dream, at the window near his bed is another antisequential device used in the plot.
Through all the disruptions, reversals, gaps and layers of temporal sequence, the
novelist suggests that some states of being manage to escape the constraints of time
altogether, stepping out into a dimension of permanent endurance. Mikhail Bhaktin identifies
this quality of existence outside the sequenced time as the chronotype of the gothic novel.
Through such devices, Wuthering Heights seeks to redeem time through a medium of
meaning (Logan 815), as Deborah Jenson calls it. The first time an event occurs it may seem
locked in its context, but its recurrence brings the earlier incidents back to mind thereby

unbinding them from their initial placement, and also creates the resonances, often perceived
as the works themes and meanings.
Consequently, Bronte tries to reinforce Realism into her novel and most importantly,
she links together the elements of Gothic Romance with Realism.
Modes of narration in Wuthering Heights
Narrative modes are the kinds of utterances through which a narrative is conveyed.
The set of methods used to convey the plot to the reader may be literary, theatrical, epistolary,
reported, cinematic and so on. Like the variety of narrators and sub-narrators, Wuthering
Heights contains a rich variety of narrative modes. Some among them are discussed below.
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Reporting :
The act of Reporting involves the deliverance of a spoken or written account of

something that one has observed, heard, done or investigated. The reporter needs to have a
firsthand experience with respect to the events that he reports.
Lockwood and Nelly Dean are the main reporters in Wuthering Heights.
Lockwoods act of reporting is touched by his urbane education which is seen through the
scholarship and with of his language. An instance of this could be found in the initial
sentences in chapter one:
I have just returned from a visit to my land lordthe solitary neighbor
that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all
England I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so
completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropists
Heaven (Bronte 1).

Lockwoods reporting is also punctuated by his reflections on human nature and his own
condition. Therefore, Lockwoods style of reporting could be summed up as erudite,
concentrated and philosophical.
Nelly Deans way of reporting is plain but it is engaging and provoking because it is
touched by her emotions and affections. For instance she explains how she was forced to drag
herself to Wuthering Heights after the marriage between Catherine (senior) and Linton
(senior):
Much against my inclination I was persuaded to leave Wuthering
Heights and accompany her here. Little Hareton was nearly five years
old, and I had just begun to teach him his letters. We made a sad
parting, but Catherines tears were more powerful than ours. (Bronte
75)
Nelly Deans narration i.e. her way of reporting therefore is inseparable from her feelings,
prejudices and ideas.Narration through reporting therefore forms the backbone of Wuthering
Heights.
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Description:
Description enables the transmission of a mental image or an observation of a

representation, through words. It brings something to life by carefully choosing and arranging
words and phrases to produce the desired effect. This method is not overtly or elaborately
seen in Wuthering Heights but the limited use of it still produces a profound impact. For
instance, Lockwoods description of the entrance of the threshold, points out to the spirit of
the placemystical, sinister and desolate:

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Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of

grotesque carving lavished over the front and especially about the
principal door, above which among a wilderness of crumbling griffins
and shameless little boys, I detected the date 1500 and the name
Hareton Earnshaw (Bronte 2)
Here, the syntactic manipulation brings about the desired effect.
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Dialogue :
Dialogue (in the literary sense) is a form consisting of a written or spoken

conversational exchange between two or more people. Therefore, it is recognized as an

important method of interaction.
A prominent aspect of Wuthering Heights is the use of the dialogic mode. Emily
Bronte has a powerful tendency to let dialogue preponderate and direct speech infiltrate into
indirect narration.
Lockwoods dialogues are distinguished by their peculiar pedantic style, such as the
interior speech in the first chapter:
Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose: was the
reflection, Suggested by this compound order. No wonder the grass
grows up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedgecutters.
(Bronte 1)
On the other hand, Nellys dialogues are crisp and so are the dialogues of the other
characters in both the houses (as reported by Nelly). An example of such a terse exchange in
chapter 8, that takes place between Nelly and Catherine:

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Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?

Nonsense, I do---thats sufficient.
By no means; you must say why?
Well, because he is handsome and pleasant to be with.
Bad! was my commentary.
And because he is young and cheerful.
Bad still.
And because he loves me.;
Indifferent, coming there. (Bronte 66)
Use of dialogues, therefore, necessitates the use of the present tense in the direct
speech portion and implies physical presence of the participants as well as situational
properties. Furthermore it becomes an important mode of perception as David Bohm
suggests:
a new kind of mind begins to come into being..people are no longer
primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather
they are participating in this pool of common meaning, which is
capable of constant development and change.(xix)
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Epistolary Mode and the Journalistic mode:

The journalistic mode is the basic framework of the novel within which the epistolary

mode is embedded. The complex prismatic pattern of narration in the novel, first begins as an
entry in a journal by Lockwood, an outsider, 1801 I have just returned from a visit to my
landlord-the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with. (Bronte 1). Another instance of
this method is seen when Lockwood goes through Catherines (senior) diary:

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An awful Sunday!...i wish my father were back again. Hindley is a

detestable substitutehis conduct to Heathcliff is atrociousH and I
are going to rebel---we look our initiatory step this evening. (Bronte
16)
But Catherines diary as opposed to Lockwoods journal is informal and open which is
signified by the pauses and breaks. The use of abbreviated forms (H. for Heathcliff) also adds
on to this effect.
Isabellas letter is an example of the epistolary mode used in the novel. It is primarily
used to fill the gap in Nelly Dans narrative. In chapter 13 Isabella writes to Nelly stating her
reason thus:
I came last night to Wuthering Heights and heard, for the first time,
that Catherine has been and is yet, very ill. I must not write to her, I
suppose and my brother is either too angry or too distressed to answer
what I send him still I must write to somebody, and the only choice left
to me is you. (Bronte 115)
Heathcliffs method of taking revenge on Linton by marrying his sister Isabella is
foregrounded by Isabella herself, through the letter.
Therefore, the narrative mode in a novel is a method of indirect authorial intrusion. It
is one way by which an author patterns his/her novel, as Joseph Warran Beach in The
Twentieth Century Novel suggests: The object of the technique is to help realize the artistic
intention, and we shall be over and over by the artist determines the technical methods
consciously or unconsciously chosen (3).

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The narrators of and in Wuthering Heights:

According to Michael Macovski
.the substance of the novel is in effect a succession of addresses
directed to designated listeners, a series of witnessed narratives[] the
vital structure of the novel (is) an epistemological disjunction between
listeners and speakers. It is moreover precisely this disjunction that
blurs the line between speakers and listeners.

(Stoneman 102)

Wuthering Heights has a multi-layered narration wherein the borrowed story is

narrated so as to reveal a new stratum (level) of the story. Lockwoods narrative is the outerframework of the story. He is present as the recipient of Nellys story and she, in turn, is the
recipient of several tertiary narratives. This dual or multi-level narrative form with which
Emily Bronte formed her story was virtually unprecedented when she wrote Wuthering
Heights. The readers therefore, rather than witnessing the events first hand learn about them
only after they have been filtered through two narrators who prove to be unreliable. It is
ultimately this partial, and therefore, untrustworthy accounts of the narrators that render
Brontes story an enigmatic quality, needing and waiting to be deciphered.
Therefore, Lockwood and Nelly, by way of their narratives, add interest and
complicity to the novel as Macovski points out: Despite its disturbing crisis of
interpretation we must still recognize that Bronte presents the entire novel as a rendering, as
a story reported at one, two or three removes. The interpretive valuations of characters like
Lockwood, Nelly and Zillah distort almost every episode of the story we hear---thereby
implicating the reader as the last in a framed succession of interpreters. (Stoneman 101)

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Though the novel is situated in the midst of multiple layers of narratives, the two most
blatantly observable narrations are those of Lockwood and Nelly Dean. Their narrative
strategies are discussed below.
Lockwood as narrator:
The novel itself is presented to the readers in the form of Lockwoods journal entries,
for the first word in the book is a date 1801; similarly chapter 32 begins with a date: 1802. As
a story-teller, Lockwood represents the common reader, his ignorance, curiosity and interest.
He is an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation and is bewildered by the mysteries and
violence of the Heights right from the beginning. That Lockwood is merely a visitor in the
world of Wuthering Heights is demonstrated by his language which are often complex
consisting of a number of clauses and long phrases. This sentence from the novels first
chapter is a typical Lockwoodian construction: Wuthering Heights is the name of
Mr.Heathcliffs dwelling, Wuthering being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of
the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather (Bronte 2).As this
sentence exemplifies, Lockwood employs ornate vocabulary. Here, Lockwood refers to
Heathcliffs dwelling (Bronte 2) as opposed to his home or house. Indeed, Lockwood
also comments on the laconic style (Bronte 5) of Heathcliff and his tendency in chipping
off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs. (Bronte 5)
Certain narrators employ the technique of familiarization to render a fantastic story
credible. But in Wuthering Heights, the readers experience the same fascination and
astonishment as Lockwood because the circumstances come to our sight without any
preliminaries. Wooding therefore suggests that Lockwoods resulting status as an outsider
(299) puts him in affinity with the reader; they can also experience a strangers
astonishment (299) at the events and characters of Wuthering Heights.

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Lockwood, through his narratives initially tries to bring a fantastic tale within the
compass of verisimilitude. Nevertheless, the readers cannot help noticing it and responding to
it. Herein lies the line that draws a distinction between Lockwood and the readers.
Lockwoods discovery of Catherines diary is the first instance of another narrative
being inculcated into his narrative and this leads to his accommodation of other narratives
and sub narratives into his own narrative. The major part of the book consists of
Lockwoods recording of the events that Nelly Dean told him who again borrows from other
narratives (Isabellas letter for instance). This gives Lockwoods narrative the tendency of a
frame narrative. A frame narrative is one in which narrators can report others narratives at
one or more removes. According to Bronwen Thomas:
The term frame is used in a metaphorical sense when applied to the
novel. It borrows from the ideas of a frame to a painting and is
primarily used to denote borders and levels within the narrative, or
how the actions and words of the fictional character are shaped and
presented to the readers.

(Logan 320)

In frame narratives there is the presence of outer and inner worlds, and the frame
narrators perspective is seemingly objective in contrast to the subjectivity of inset narratives.
Therefore, multiple narratives are shaped and incorporated into a long whole by a narrator.
The readers therefore learn Nellys narrative only via Lockwood and he is the one who brings
the reader in and out of Wuthering Heights. Therefore Lockwood has the liberty to omit
certain parts of the story. Indeed, in chapter 15 he freely admits to abridging Nellys already
partial account: I have now heard all my neighbours history Ill continue in her own
words, only a little condensed (Bronte 132). Thus, the reader only receives limited
information as to what actually happens at Wuthering Heights.

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Nevertheless Lockwood with all his limitations is intelligent and perceptive and
Emily Bronte makes use of his descriptions to create subtle changes in situation and
character. For instance in chapter 2, he comments on the doors (that were) barred in day
time. (Bronte 6). But when he returns in 1802 to find Heathcliff dead, he sees the positive
changes in Wuthering Heights and observes that both doors and lattices were open (Bronte
260). Similarly, changes in character are also noticed by Lockwood. For instance, Hareton,
who is described in the opening chapters as a boor and a clown, becomes by the end of the
novel a young man respectably dressed (Bronte 261) with handsome features. (Bronte
261).
Therefore, Bronte sees Lockwood as a functional tool to instigate the element of
suspense and trace the process of metamorphosis in the novel.
Nelly Dean as narrator:
Nelly is the interpolated narrator through whom Lockwood learns the history of the
protagonists, which he presents to the readers Nelly, in turn, is the recipient of tertiary
narratives from the following people: Heathcliff: chapter 6, 29; Isabella: chapter 13, 17;
Cathy: chapter 24 and Zillah: chapter 30.
Nelly Deans narrative is copious and detailed and she tries to create a sense of
actuality by constructing a series of concrete details. Bronte metaphorically alludes to her
Sewing (Bronte 28) of the tale of Wuthering Heights, by bringing together the elements of
other narratives. But her prejudices are revealed right from the beginning and it is evident that
she hates her landlord Heathcliff, because she makes remarks such as: It is strange people
should be so greedy when they are alone in the world. (Bronte 27) and, (Heathcliff is)
Rough as a saw-edge and hard as a whinstone! (Bronte 27). According to her, From the
very beginning he bred bad feeling in the house. (Bronte 30). She also initially describes

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him as a stupid little thing (Bronte 30) and later on as a scoundrel (Bronte 236).
Therefore, it is possible that she presents what is merely her own opinion of Heathcliff.
In the opinion of Woodring, most of the scenes in the novel receive some imprint
from Nellys character or position (304). It could also be seen that Nelly manipulates her
narrative in order to justify her own prior actions and decisions and there are several such
instances in the novel. In chapter 9, Nelly chooses to remain silent though she is conscious of
Heathcliffs presence and fails to prompt Catherine while she goes on with her passionate
confession: Ere this speech ended, I became sensible of Heathcliffs presence. Having
noticed a slight movement, I turned my head and saw him rise from the benchhe had
listened till Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him [] (Bronte 68). But till the
end of Catherines death, she doesnt reveal the truth to her.
In chapter 11, Nelly exaggerates Heathcliffs quarrel with Catherine (apparently
because she hates Heathcliff) and fans the flames of Lintons anger towards him: She is
sadly put out by Mr. Heathcliffs behavior and indeed, I do think (emphasis added) it is time
to arrange his visits on another footing. There is harm in being too soft. (Bronte 96)
Catherine laments the foolishness of the culprit who had triggered a series of
unfortunate events:
Heathcliffs talk was outrageous after you left us; but I could soon
have diverted him from Isabella, and the rest meant nothing. Now all is
dashed wrong by the fools carving to hear evil of self, that haunts
some people like a demon! Had Edgar never gathered our
conservation, he would never have been the worst for it. (Bronte 99)

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Nelly never reveals that she is the culprit until Catherine finds it out by herself: Ah! Nelly
has played traitor you witch! So you do seek elf-bolts to hurt us! (Bronte 109)
Nelly judges that Catherine is overstating her ill condition and doesnt till Edgar about
Catherines deteriorating state, despite the fact that she was requested by her mistress to do
so. Edgar admonishes Nelly: You knew your mistresss nature and you encouraged me to
harass her. And not to give me one hint of how she has been these three days! (Bronte 109).
But Nelly narrates: I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for anothers
wicked waywardness (Bronte 109).
Therefore, Nellys conscious or unconscious interruptions have led to the main twists
in the chain of events of the tale. Nevertheless, Nellys recollections of the past only make her
vindicate her actions again and again. But, ironically, through her narration, Nelly shows that
the protagonists dont trust her anymore. As a result, such lapses in action and attitude rises
doubts in the minds of the readers, who could perceive her as a fallible or unreliable narrator,
who, according to Abrams is one [.] whose perception, interpretation, and evaluation of
the matters he or she narrates do not coincide with the opinions and norms implied by the
author, which the author expects the alert reader to share. (Abrams and Harpham 236)
Macovski observes: While Nelly directs here tale to Lockwood, the most crucial
scenes of the novel centre around those dialogues in which she herself must play the listener
to Heathcliffs and Catherines revelatory confessions (Stoneman 104). This advantage gives
room for Nelly to chip off the details which she thinks are inessential. Just as she recounts
certain scenes in minute detail, she chooses to ignore the others, for example, Nelly
summaries the twelve years following Catherines death in a few paragraphs; this could be
because nothing of significance happened in these years or because Nelly just doesnt want to
dwell on them.

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Such an ambivalence in Nellys attitude combined with her meddlesome nature

renders her stance inconsistent and hypocritical. Nevertheless, in spite of her Victorianish
narration of the tale, she brings the reader close to the narrative and allows them to have a
taste of the world of Wuthering Heights.
The limitations of both Lockwood and Nelly Dean as narrators:
The explanations and interpretations of both narrators are often revealed simplistically
and they are emotionally limited Nelly Dean and Lockwood grasp the situations at Wuthering
Heights in a sentimental and intellectual manner respectively. Lockwood is openly uncertain
about the situation at the Heights while Nelly is unable to grasp and fathom the
characteristics of the protagonists, though the narrators justify themselves in their own way it
triggers the readers speculations..
Nelly is lacking in her capacity to understand the nature of the protagonists, whose
emotional ranges exceed her own and this short coming on Nellys part emphasizes just how
passionate the protagonists are. For instance, Nelly dismisses Catherine seniors distress and
mental trauma when she has to choose between marrying Edgar and Heathcliff. She is unable
to comprehend the intensity of her fiery outburst: My great miseries in this world have been
Heathcliffs miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in
living is himselfNelly I am Heathcliff! Hes always in my mind as my own being.
(Bronte 69). But Nelly is completely apathetic; she says: I was out of patience with her
folly! (Bronte 70) and admits that she couldnt make any sense out of (her) nonsense.
(Bronte 70). Moreover, in chapter 16 Nelly perceives the extreme mental torment of
Heathcliff after Catherines death [I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my
soul! (Bronte 143)] as something devilish and animalistic, like a savage beast (Bronte

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143) and expresses her incapability to understand the situation: He was beyond my skill to
quiet or console (Bronte 143).
Right from the beginning, Lockwood makes wrong guesses: He initially mistakes the
relationship between young Catherine and Heathcliff thinking that she is his wife and also
assumes that Hareton is Heathcliffs son. Lockwood, in a way, fails to grasp the
psychological depth and intensity of the characters and attempts to rationalize the entire
affair. For instance, in chapter 8 he muses after seeing the portrait of Edgar Linton: I did not
marvel how Catherine Earnshaw could forget her first friend (Heathcliff) for such an
individual (Bronte 55). This statement clearly shows that Lockwood looks only at the social
and physical compatibility of Catherine and Linton and is unable to discern the soulful
connection between Heathcliff and Catherine. Therefore Alexander and Smith point out:
Lockwood then with his civilized southern manners is out of place in the wild isolation and
savage environment of Wuthering Heights and (among) its inhabitants. (306-07)
As a result, both Nelly and Lockwood attempt to discount what they cannot
understand [Macovski] (Stoneman 103). In a way, Lockwood and Nelly completely shun
Heathcliff and Cathy out of their world. Lockwood shuts out Catherines homeless ghost
violently and Nelly constructs complex bonds of genealogy between all the characters to
intensify the exclusion of Heathcliff as the other. Therefore Bersani suggests: Narrative
structure works towards the expulsion of difference .structural circularity and
repetitivenessfinally leaves no room for Heathcliff..the domestic is a defence against the
alienating metamorphis (Jackson 129).
Through their narrative method, both Lockwood and Nelly make Catherine junior the central
character of the stories they construct. Lockwoods main intention behind questioning Nelly
is to know more about Cathy:

21

Oh, Ill turn the talk on my landlords family! I thought to myself. A

good subject to start-and that pretty girlwidow , I should like to
know her history: whether she be a native of the country, or as is more
probable, an exotic that the surely indigenae will not recognize for
kin. (Bronte 24)
Nelly too has an ulterior motive behind narrating the story and this is made clear
when she commence(s)waiting no further invitation to her story (Bronte 28). In
Lockwood, Nelly perceives an opportunity for Cathy to escape Heathcliffs tyranny at
Wuthering Heights. She says: I can see no remedy at present, unless she could marry again
(Bronte 252).
Lockwood is well aware of Nellys designs; in chapter 31 Lockwood comments: She
does not seem so amiable I thought, as Mrs. Dean would persuade me to believe (emphasis
added). Shes a beauty its true; but not an angel. (Bronte 253). He also grants that it would
have been a realization of something more romantic than a fairy talehad she (Cathy) and
I (Lockwood) struck up an attachment, as her good nurse (Nelly) desired (Bronte 258).
The failures of the narrators erect a barrier between the reader and the lives of the
protagonists; they also remind the reader that they are not witnessing the events first hand.
Through their narration, Nelly and Lockwood reveal more about themselves and their
character, as Macovski points out: When the speakers of Wuthering Heights address a
listener, they in effect expose a hidden part of the self -- expose it to the interpretation not
only of the other, but of themselves as well. (Stoneman 105)
However, the idiosyncrasies of the narrators add on the overall inscrutability of
Wuthering Heights. Since the reader cannot be fully convinced of the credibility of

22

Lockwoods and Nellys sub-narratives, he/she must make his/her own judgments regarding
the events and characters of Wuthering Heights. Hence, Walter Allen rightly observes:
Lockwood and Nelly are essentially spectators. That is, the role (is)
forced on us, the readers and their comments, their function as chorus
becomes ours tooIt is this that gives Wuthering Heights its singular
richness which can only be compared in its total effect to that of a
Shakespearean tragedy (198)
The narrative of perspectivism in Wuthering Heights:
By transferring a given narrative from teller to teller in Wuthering Heights, Bronte
blurs the distinction between the voices of its narrators and problematizes the question: Who
is speaking?. One cannot identify who is speaking, from whom or where the narrative issues,
or who rightfully possesses it. As the transferred through filtering and framing, it results in
the dispossession of the narrative. Therefore Jeffrey Williams comments, The
discontinuous and heterogeneous layers of the frame, as well as their confusion with the
topical action, radically unfix narratorial position and focalization. It is hard, in short, to
know where the narrative is coming from.(140)
Ironically, the authors authority in the novel(Williams 134), as William Buckler
puts it actually arises from Brontes refraining from the omniscient narration and allowing
Lockwood and Nelly to Script the novel according to their whims, who again are enscripted
in the novel according to Brontes own whims.
Though critics have pointed out that the disjunction of voices in Wuthering Heights
has blurred its perspectives and interests, such a blurring is actually the starting point of
interpretation and analysis. The undecidability that mystifies the novel, hence, gives scope

23

to several perspectives through which the novel could be viewed; therefore Charles Percy
Sanger in the Norton Critical Edition of Wuthering Heights rightly points out:
There is so far as I know, no other novel in the world which it is
possible to subject to an analysis of the kind I have tried to make
(which is exhaustive and extensive ). This in itself makes the book
very unusual. ( the perspectives of the novel ) throw a light on the
character of Emily Bronte and her bookit demonstrates the vividness
of the authors imagination.(336)
Conclusion
In all the narrative transmissions, each re-telling of the history of events transforms
that history into a new construct, displacing it further from its lost origin. Therefore,
Wuthering Heights becomes a text inscribing the absence of a narrative centre. Nevertheless,
the narrative style and strategies employed by Bronte shows that she possessed a deeper
insight into the mechanics of fiction than many a modern novelist. Motivated and emotionally
involved narrators are psychologically convincing in spite of their limited view of reality.
They are more natural and plausible and save the art from becoming a mere artifice.

Works Cited:
Primary Source:
Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Heritage Publishers, 2007. Print.

24

Secondary Sources:
Alexander, Christine and Smith, Margaret. The Oxford Companion to the Brontes.
.Oxford:OUP, 2006. Print.
Allen ,Walter Ernest. The English Novel: A Short Critical History. USA: Penguin Publishing,
1988. Print.
Beach, Joseph Warren. The Twentieth Century Novel: Studies in Technique. AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1960. Google Book Search. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.
Bloom, Harold. Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007.
Print.
Bohm, David. On Dialogue. Routledge, 2004. Print.
Bront, Emily Jane. Wuthering Heights: The 1847 Text, Backgrounds and Criticism.
Richard J. Dunn (ed.). Norton, 2003.
Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Print.
Herman, David (ed.) et. al. Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Routledge, 2012.
Print.
Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. Taylor & Francis, 1981. Google
Book Search. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.

Jones, Clarie. The English Novel: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Print.
Logan, Peter - Melville. The Encyclopedia of The Novel: Volume:1. UK: John Wiley & Sons
Limited, 2011. Google Book Search. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.
Sharma, R.S. "Wuthering Heights":A Commentary. Atlantic Publishers, 1994. Print.

25

Stoneman Patsy (Ed.). Wuthering Heights (New Casebooks). The MacMillan Press Ltd.,1993.
Print.
Thormahlen, Marianne. The Lunatic and the Devils Disciple: The Lovers in Wuthering
Heights, Review of English Studies 48, n.s. (1997), 183-97. Print.
Williams, Jeffrey. Theory and the Novel: Narrative Reflexivity in the British Tradition.
Cambridge: CUP, 1998. Print.
Woodring, Carl R. The Narrators of Wuthering Heights. Nineteenth Century Fiction.
Berkeley: U of California P, 1957. 298-305. Print.
Web Resources:
Emir, Derya . Traditional and Experimental Narrative Strategies in English Fiction. Web. 12
Mar. 2013. <http://www.belgeler.com/blg/p6w/traditional-and-experimentalnarrative-strategies-in-english-fiction-ngiliz-romaninda-geleneksel-ve-eneysel-klemestratejileri>
Golban, Petru. The Victorian Buildungsroman: Towards a Fictional Typology.
<http://sbe.dumlupinar.edu.tr/8/299.pdf>
Markham, WIlliam E. A discussion of Brontes narrative strategy in Wuthering Heights. 9
Jan. 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. <http://www.scribd.com/doc/104611874/A-

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The Narrative Techniques in Wuthering Heights. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.

<http://homepage.tinet.ie/~splash/Narratives.html >