Lockwood, unlike the other characters, is a more cultured man and he is a correct man, proper. He has not lived his entire live near Gimmerton, but rather he has lived in a wealthier, more educated part of England. He doesn’t know Gimmerton very well, since he remarks that it is ‘certainly a beautiful country’. He adds that he has not seen a place ‘so completely removed from the stir of society’, ‘In all England’
It is important that Lockwood being a narrator is an outsider because that way he is not biased by the inhabitants in the Heights since he is unfamiliar with their stories, he has not grown up with them, he just passes by. He is an incentive for Ellen to narrate the story of young Catherine and Heathcliff. He thinks to himself, ‘Oh, I’ll turn the talk on my landlord’s family!’ and so we see Nelly’s narration to Lockwood begin.
On the other hand, Ellen Dean, otherwise known as Nelly, is the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights, ‘I ran errands too’ and is the principal narrator. Being the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights brings advantages to being the main narrator of the novel, she knows every inhabitant at Wuthering Heights very well and is a witness of various events in the novel.
Lockwood’s first impressions of Nelly are that she is a righteous woman, a woman you can rely on. The way that Lockwood describes her makes the reader trust her, hence being certain that her narration will be correct and well-founded.
Mrs. Dean is a loved character and the inhabitants of the Heights trust her since they have known her for a long while, ‘I was almost always at Wuthering Heights’. She is more often a friend or a companion rather than a housekeeper. Catherine told her many of her secrets and this is shown by the following quote said by Catherine Earnshaw, ‘[...] That will do to explain my secret, as well as ther other [...]’.
Due to the fact that Ellen has grown up with the inhabitants at Wuthering Heights, she is biased to whom she likes better, so the advice she gives, is subjective. She sometimes chooses Heathcliff over Edgar, ‘[...] Make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss Cathy comes out [...]’ She tries to help him look better for Catherine. That Nelly’s narration is told subjectively, affects how we think of the characters because we are influenced by what Nelly, who has known them for long, has to say about them, they make her narration complicated.
It is important that Ellen is a down-to-earth character because that way she brings a level of balance to the novel. Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw both have such a wild and passionate nature, that there needed to be someone there to pull them back to earth when they became too impulsive. At one point, Catherine believes that she can help Heathcliff, ‘[...] if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise’, she thinks that way, she will be able to set him free of Hindley’s tyranny.
In conclusion, I find that both narrators bring something good to the novel. Lockwood, even though he misunderstands events, is an outsider and hence, less biased in his narration. Due to the fact that he is an outsider and does not know the inhabitants’ story, Nelly narrates the past to him and we are able to understand how live at Wuthering Heights worked. They both facilitate the readers to look into the lives of those in Wuthering Heights.
