Narrative point of view shapes our perspective of the characters and the world of the text. Discuss with reference to Wuthering Heights.

Chanrous Nhem

SHORT ESSAY

Wuthering Heights

By Emily Bronte

[Topic: 2 – Narrative point of view shapes our perspective of the characters and the world of the text. Discuss with reference to Wuthering Heights.]

In the novel, Wuthering Heights, the author, Emily Bronte uses many techniques such as characterization, symbolism, imagery, and setting to develop characters and the world of the text. However another essential technique is used for this development, this being narrative point of view, as it influences and shapes our perspective of the characters and our personal thoughts and opinions of their situation. Throughout the novel, various characters, each encompassing their own personal background and values that make up and develop their own individual character into a realistic person, assume the role of narrator. Our perspective and judgments, as the reader, are restricted and confined to what is presented to us by the narrator. Therefore the narrators have control over the readers by having the ability to shape our whole perception and intuitive judgment of each character and their presented situation. Wuthering Heights is presented in first person narrative throughout the text with the majority of the story being presented via two main characters: Lockwood and Nelly Dean. As an addition to this, there are also other characters, such as the young Heathcliff, who contribute their own personal, small but essential insights into the novel.

Lockwood, the first but secondary narrator to Nelly, presents the overlook of the entire novel by introducing the reader to the characters and makes comments during Nelly’s narration. Similar to us as the reader, Lockwood is a stranger to both worlds and its inhabitants and his first impressions of Wuthering Heights is conveyed leave the readers with a lasting impression throughout Wuthering Heights. This is evident when he uses descriptive adjectives such as ‘gaunt, grotesque’ and ‘villainous’, to describe the appearance of the house. From this readers are positioned to feel the hostile and unwelcoming atmosphere created by Lockwood’s influencing descriptions. Lockwood’s personal values, attributes and background plays a major role in his perception of characters in Wuthering Heights as he can be described as vain when he states, “ I felt interested in a man who seemed more reserved than myself.” From this readers see that he is proud and obnoxious regarding himself highly. Being a gentleman and possessing all the stereotypical qualities of a gentleman, for example being pleasant, sociable and polite, as well as being adequately wealthy, he is convinced of his own attractiveness, intelligence and overall superiority as he patronizes Nelly Dean, his servant of evidently lower class, stating, “ Goodness, you are very clever for a servant!” This shows that because of Nelly’s position in a lower class, Lockwood believes that being an uneducated, female servant means having no presence of intelligence what so ever, and he is sufficiently surprised when Nelly proves him wrong. From this reader are positioned to see that Lockwood is quite shallow and superficial, valuing social classes and believing it makes people of higher class superior to anyone below them. As he is primarily a stranger to his new environment and its inhabitants, Lockwood brings in his own assumptions about the inhabitants of ‘Thrushcross Grange’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’ and fails to fully understand the extreme complexity of the characters. Overall, Emily Bronte uses Lockwood’s narrative point of view to shape our understanding and ultimately, our perspective of the characters and their world as readers are positioned to relate to someone on the same level as them, as this character is Lockwood, as he, much like the readers are not directly involved in the story and can be seen as the outsider, having the ability to make judgments and bias assumptions based on the introduced facts.

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A native to the moors, Nelly Dean is the principal narrator in Wuthering Heights as she narrates the majority of the story from a first person perspective. We, as the reader essentially hear Nelly’s story through Lockwood’s ears as she depicts the events that occur in her life in association to Wuthering Heights, Thrushcross Grange and both their inhabitants. In the beginning of the novel Nelly is introduced as the caretaker of Thrushcross Grange and Lockwood’s servant, but as the story progresses we learn that Nelly was exclusively involved in the story. Nelly worked as the servant and occasional playmate of Heathcliff, Catherine Earnshaw and Hindley Earnshaw, as well as later becoming Hareton Earnshaw and Catherine Linton’s nanny. An example of Nelly of this is shown on page 63 where it states, “…Your to nurse it, Nelly- to feed it with sugar and milk, and take care of it day and night…” Here another servant girl is making Nelly aware of her new responsibility of motherhood towards Hareton after his mother dies. For these reasons it is evident that Nelly had close and personal relationships with many of the main characters in the novel. Thus making her story more precise and believable to the readers. Wuthering Heights is very much a book about love and hate, but Nelly is totally un-opinionated and neutral about the characters allowing the readers themselves to make their own decisions about the characters. This is presented as Nelly has the ability to move freely between the opposing forces of storm and calm, without creating any conflict or causing any disturbance. It is possible to see Nelly as the mother figure in the novel as often, she had to assume the role of mother. This is evident when she had to nurse both Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw when each of their mothers died after giving birth to them. Another example of where Nelly has to assume the role of mother is when Heathcliff became ill as a child and Nelly nursed him back to health. Theses points further add to the assumption that Nelly had a very close relationship to the characters in the story. Although Nelly is portrayed as an uneducated, lowly classed servant, Emily Bronte manages to express Nelly as a capable storyteller as she is described as a ‘worthy’ and ‘simple common sense woman’. Also Lockwood comments on her intelligence and expression, and believes she is one of the more intelligent minds of the moors. Overall, Emily Bronte uses Nelly’s narrative point of view to shape the readers perspective of the characters and the world of the text by portraying Nelly as a non-biased character. Nelly presents the story how it is, raw and unopinionated. The purpose of this is to allow the readers, as well as Lockwood, to alone make independent judgments and perceptions of the characters and giving us, as the reader, the individual choice whether to be biased or not based on the facts offered by Nelly.

Creating a contrast with Nelly’s subdued tones, other characters such as Heathcliff create insight into the extreme passions of the main characters. This is possible as they also have a direct involvement in the story, as they themselves are the characters in the story, feeling and experiencing every single emotion described and presented. Our first impression of Heathcliff is presented by Lockwood as he describes Heathcliff’s, “ …black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows…” Leaving us with the impression that he is cold, unwelcoming and hostile. An insight into Heathcliff’s nature can be seen on pages 47-50 where Heathcliff retells of his and Catherine Earnshaw’s unfortunate adventure to Thrushcross Grange, “Cathy and I escaped from the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see…”, and Heathcliff’s raw nature is presented where Heathcliff tries frantically to free Catherine from the jaws of a dog, “ The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly…”, “…I vociferated curses enough to annihilate any fiend in Christendom, and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried with all my might to cram it down his throat…” From Heathcliff’s passionate recount of the story, we almost feel the adrenalin rush Heathcliff is feeling that very moment, sharing in his feelings of desperation, anger, as well as fear. Overall, Emily Bronte uses the narrative point of views of characters such as Heathcliff to influence how readers shape our perspective of characters and the world of the text by allowing readers to share and experience, first hand, the intense and raw passion usually controlled under narrators such as Nelly and Lockwood. Thus influencing the readers to make judgments of characters based on the first hand experience presented by these characters such as Heathcliff.

Overall, in the novel Wuthering Heights the author, Emily Bronte efficiently use characters to portray different levels narrative point of views, where both Lockwood and Nelly give us a sheltered rendition of story. Lockwood, the secondary narrator, is at a similar level to the readers being told the story and Nelly acts as the principal narrator as she tells of interactions with the characters in the story. However, Heathcliff on the other hand creates an insight and exposes the readers to the full fury of passion experienced by him and similar characters. Essentially, based on each narrators’ individual point of view, the readers are given the opportunity to make assumptions and judgments on characters wholly and solely on the information presented by the narrators.