Do you find the first three chapters of Wuthering Heights an effective opening for this novel?

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Do you find the first three chapters of Wuthering Heights an effective opening for this novel?

In the first chapter of Wuthering Heights, you (the reader) can start to relate to the characters that have been introduced and the setting, Wuthering Heights. The language and the use of imagery play a big role in helping the reader understand the situation in the first few opening paragraphs. The first line reads, ‘I [Lockwood] have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be trouble with.’ By reading this, you can instantly get the feeling about Lockwood’s impression concerning Heathcliff. By describing him as a ‘solitary’ man, Lockwood is saying that he is alone in his house without any companions to talk to. Therefore, the reader could gather extra information about Heathcliff from the first sentence. There are other descriptive words in the text which help you imagine what type of character Heathcliff is. When Lockwood visits Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff utters ‘ “Walk in”….with closed teeth’, it then does on to say, ‘and expressed the sentiment, “Go to the Deuce!”’ This will give the reader a mindful impression of what Heathcliff is like with visitors and explains why he is a ‘solitary’ man. When you utter through your teeth, you often give across the idea that you are angry. In the novel, Heathcliff is an angry and tense man and it explains that he says ‘Walk in’ with feeling and suggesting that he might go on to say, ‘Go to the Devil!’ Being a lonely man with no companions is an outcome of how miserable he is and how he rejects any of his visitors. When the reader gets reintroduced to him in the middle of the novel, the reader finds it hard to believe that someone would treat a stranger quite so rudely as he does. The reader then goes on to discover that Heathcliff is more than just an unsociable neighbour. The reader begins to share Lockwood’s bemused curiosity, he doesn’t know why Heathcliff is like he is. He backs this statement up by saying, ‘He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl.’ By introducing Heathcliff in stages, it gets the reader more motivated to read on and uncover Lockwood’s question. This is a successful technique because what Lockwood suggests and says about Heathcliff in the first three chapters, is then backed up later on in the novel. This makes the reader more confident in understanding Heathcliff as a person.

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Wuthering Heights is narrated by Lockwood for approximately seven chapters and the narrating is then taken over by Nelly Dean, she is one of the servants working at Wuthering Heights and she can be considered as being directly involved in the characters actions. When Lockwood arrives at Wuthering Heights, he turns up half way through the dramatic story of the Earnshaws and the Lintons. This provides the readers a way in to an otherwise closed and secret place. Lockwood also exaggerates how nice Heathcliff is. To the reader, Heathcliff is stubborn and impatient but because they readers are reading ...

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