>>>

There is no single point of view in this novel. The narrative itself consists of stories-withinstories-within-stories. The story is told by Lockwood, by Nelly Dean, by Heathcliff, by Catherine, by
Isabella, by the younger Cathy, and by Zillah, the other housekeeper. The author never clearly tells us
what to think, we must evaluate the story on our own. Lockwood and Nelly, who tell most of the story,
appear more normal than most of the people they talk about (Lockwood is a conventional man about
town, despite his brief visit in Yorkshire, and Nelly displays a practical wisdom), but you cant
overlook their biases. Neither of them can appreciate the passion between Heathcliff and Catherine.
You as a reader, can, however. You can see much more than any single character can tell you.
Evaluating what each character says helps to draw into the book.
>>>
Lockwood, a newcomer to the Wuthering Heights, narrates the entire novel as an entry in his
diary. The story that Lockwood records is told to him by Nelly, a servant, and Lockwood writes most
of the narrative in her voice, describing how she told it to him. Some parts of Nellys story are
narrated by other characters, such as when Nelly receives a letter from Isabella and recites its content.
>>>

The First Person (Peripheral Narrator)

Wuthering Heights has two main narrators: Lockwood and Ellen "Nelly" Dean. The primary narrator
is Lockwood, who begins and ends the narrative and is recording the story that he hears from Nelly.
Nelly is Lockwood's inside source of information, because he can only directly report what he
witnesses in the present time beginning in 1801, the year before Heathcliff dies. So, Nelly is telling
Lockwood her version of the events, which then get filtered and recorded through his perspective. In
cases where Nelly was not a witness to the events, she fills in the story with either someone else's
eyewitness report to her, or she quotes a letter.
It's important to remember that both Nelly and Lockwood have their own interests, biases, likes and
dislikes, so what we read is a highly biased account of the story. Besides a few exceptions, we are
always receiving information through the double lens of these two characters, neither of whom is
objective.
Bront provides a few hints that our narrators have their own plans, desires, and interpretations. An
example: Remember how Lockwood misjudges Heathcliff on their first encounter? He writes, "Mr.
Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow!" (1.1).
We realize pretty quickly that Heathcliff is a lot of things, but a "capital fellow" isn't one of them, and
it takes Lockwood a while to get the hint. Plus, remember how he thought he had a chance with
Catherine Heathcliff? Right.
OK, now just one (of many) examples of a problem with Nelly's narrative. She admits that she tells the
story "in true gossip's fashion" (8.87). How Nelly sees herself is important because it tells us about the
kind of narrator she will be. Nelly wants Lockwood to know that she's not just some uneducated
servant. But any time you have narrator who reads a lot, it's a red flag. By adding this detail, Bront
suggests that Nelly likes stories, or fiction, and possibly gets some of her ideas from books. We can
tell she likes drama and symbolic detail, as when she tells the story of Heathcliff putting a piece of his
hair in Catherine's locket.
While Nelly's story involves less speculation than Lockwood's, her advice to young Heathcliff reveals
an active imagination, the result of reading perhaps one too many Romantic novels:
Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them
able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? [. . .]
Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth. (7.44)
The point is, Nelly adds her own creative interpretations to a scene she is too much a part of to
describe objectively. The story that Nelly narrates takes place, for the most part, in the past, and the
characters cannot disprove her version of the facts. Her tendency to romanticize makes her a
compelling but unreliable narrator.

>>>

Ellen "Nelly" Dean

As Lockwood figures out pretty quickly, Nelly Dean is trusted by the members of both houses. One of
the most obvious examples of this is when Heathcliff tells her, near the end, that she is the only person
he feels comfortable speaking with.
While she is a much more useful and informed narrator than Lockwood, she is also flawed, biased, and
overly identified with the Lintons, so you have to be careful about her. When Nelly begins narrating to
Lockwood, we don't suddenly get the "real story," but rather another representation of the "truth."
It's easy to forget that the novel is Lockwood's journal, which is itself a recording of Nelly's oral
narration. Nellys familiarity with books qualifies her as a storyteller. She will indeed provide some
clarity to the complicated family tree, but she is no omniscient narrator. By her own confession, she
and the other villagers (several of whom fill in the gaps of her story) don't like outsiders, and they have
a tendency toward superstition. What's more, Nelly seems to find the whole conflict between the
families rather entertaining.
>>>

Lockwood

Lockwood is primary narrator, but his judgment of a situation can be a little off. We soon realize that
we will have to be careful about how we interpret his narration.
As a narrator, he is here to tell us what he sees. After all, his name does suggest a locked door, a
reality he faces several times both literally and metaphorically.
We never know much about Lockwood personally. To know anything about Lockwood, we must
either compare his own interpretations with ours (which is hard, since he is our source of information)
or evaluate the few actions in which he participates.
One prominent example: Lockwood's response to Catherine's persistent ghost at the window during his
eerie night in the oak-paneled bed:
Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on
to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bed-clothes: still it
wailed [. . .]. (3.50)
Brutal treatment or quick thinking? Either way, Lockwood seems to be no stranger to violence. He
will spend the remainder of the novel trying to comprehend what this scene says about the inhabitants
(dead and alive) of Wuthering Heights and yet he never refers to it again. His cluelessness is
confirmed by his return the next day, when he finds him unable to navigate the moors. Perhaps Bront
is telling us that Lockwood is not good at negotiating confusing situations. And let's not forget
Lockwood's absurd presumptions about romantic possibilities with Cathy. Really?!
>>>
Bront appears to present objective observers, in an attempt to allow the story to speak for
itself. Objective observations by outsiders would presumably not be tainted by having a direct
involvement; unfortunately, a closer examination of these two seemingly objective narrators reveals
their bias. For example, Lockwood's narrative enables readers to begin the story when most of the
action is already completed. Although the main story is being told in flashback, having Lockwood
interact with Heathcliff and the others at Wuthering Heights immediately displaces his objectivity.
What he records in his diary is not just what he is being told by Nelly but his memories and
interpretation of Nelly's tale. Likewise, Nelly's narrative directly involves the reader and engages them
in the action. While reporting the past, she is able to foreshadow future events, which builds suspense,
thereby engaging readers even more. But her involvement is problematic because she is hypocritical in
her actions: sometimes choosing Edgar over Heathcliff (and vice versa), and at times working with
Cathy while at other times betraying Cathy's confidence. Nonetheless, she is quite an engaging
storyteller, so readers readily forgive her shortcomings. Eventually, both Lockwood and Nelly only
enable readers to enter the world of Wuthering Heights. All readers know more than any one narrator,
and therefore are empowered as they read.
>>>
There are two more questions that can be raised about the reliability of Lockwood and Nelly.
The first is, did Lockwood change any of Nellie's story? This is, it seems to me, a futile question. I see

no way we can answer this question, for there are no internal or external conversations or events which
would enable us to assess his narrative integrity. The same principle would apply to Nellie, if we
wonder whether she deliberately lied to Lockwood or remembered events incorrectly. However, it is
entirely another matter if we ask whether Nellie or Lockwood misunderstood or misinterpreted the
conversations and actions that each narrates. In this case, we can compare the narrator's interpretation
of characters and events with the conversations and behavior of the characters, consider the values the
narrator holds and those held or expressed by the characters and their behavior, and also look at the
pattern of the novel in its entirety for clues in order to evaluate the narrator's reliability.
>>>
Nelly Dean is a native of the moors and has lived all her life with the characters whose story
she tells. Although she is an uneducated woman, Emily Bronte manages to express Nelly as a capable
storyteller in two explanations. The first is how Lockwood comments on her intelligence and
expression, and believes she is one of the more intelligent minds of the moors. The second explanation
of Nellys thought and expression is through the wisdom she has achieved through the harsh discipline
she has endured over her life, and through the good libraries at the Heights and Grange that have given
her knowledge and a wide vocabulary.
Her criticism of the other characters and her loyalty towards them not only make her a good narrator,
but also an excellent servant. Even though she is a servant, her intelligence and knowledge of selfworth create equality between her and the other characters, giving her the ability to speak her mind.
Nellys narration comes from being closely and privately involved in the lives of the characters in the
story. She not only acts as a witness to the events in their lives, but also as somewhat of a judge and
critic to their actions. Nelly is our guide through the story, and without her voice, we would never be
aware of the strange and amazing events that occurred in Wuthering Heights.
>>>
Emily does not belong to the literary directions of that time, her novel making an
exception from the literary movements of that time. The novel is constructed by a technique and a
unique literary style that makes her narrative increasingly more compelling and more dynamic. The
novel combines in a great way, gothic and fantastic elements.
Narrative technique is a nonlinear one, with many "back in time" sequences of characters , and two characters that occupy the
position of narrator: Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Deen. The novel is a fight for love, to survive, to forget
the past and overcome the differences imposed by family and society. Love between Heathcliff and
Catherine Earnshaw is the patron of all actions of the novel, a love unresolved and painful
that destroys them and those around them,a love rarely presented in this way in universal literature.
There are two times of reference in the novel:
-a
present narrative, which is the correspondent of the present time, when, after renting Thrushcross
Grange, Lockwood ,gets to know Heathcliff and asks Nelly Dean to tell about him the entire story.
-a past narrative, which is the correspondent of the past time, when the story narrated by Nelly
Dean
happened.
The
reference time balances between present and past with an exciting ease. The narrative technique used
far from being easy to analyse. But, it is the best manner that an author could use when the readers has
to be involved inside the story.
At a first sight, this technique could be a little bit restrictive, without the presence of a narrator to give
informations and explanations about characters' feelings,but it was proved to be the best way to
invlove the readers, in the core of the story,asking their imagination to work.
>>>

There are three narrative levels in "Wuthering Heights"

1. Primary: The dates 1801 and 1802 in Chs 1 and 32 clearly indicate that the entire novel is a written
record of all the incidents narrated to Lockwood by Nelly Dean. He is thus both the primary narrator
and the primary narattee [the person to whom the story is told]. The method of narration is the first
person past written method.

2. Secondary: Nelly Dean is the secondary narrator who narrates all the incidents to Lockwood. The
method of narration is the first person past/present spoken method. Nelly Dean begins telling the story
in Ch. 4: "before I came to live here, she commenced." Most of the incidents she narrates have
already taken place, but when she reports the exact words of a character especially during an intensely
emotional scene (Ch11) Emily Bronte creates the illusion that the incident is happening just then.
3. Tertiary: Some of the incidents are first narratred by the different characters first to Nelly the
secondary narrator who in turn narrates them to Lockwood the primary narrator: Heathcliff's oral
accounts in Chs. 6 and 33; Isabella's letter in Ch13 which is read out aloud to Lockwood thus,
combining the written and the oral method; Isabella's oral account in Ch17 ; younger Cathy Linton's
oral account in Ch24; and Zillah's oral account in Ch30.
A first person narrator is 'unreliable.' Emily Bronte has used 'unreliable' first person narrators to
deliberately mystify the shocking incidents in the novel: Catherine's diary entries in Ch 3 are
suggestive of incest, "we made ... dresser."
>>>
Chs. 1-4 [Narrative Present; narr. by Lockwood] Lockwood's visits to Wuthering Heights
and his following illness; he begs Nelly Dean to tell the "history" and the Exposition (introduction) of
major settings, characters, and conflicts begins.
Narrative Frame is established to provide a plausible reason for telling the story (the narrative) of
Wuthering Heights: The first narrative voice we hear in the "narrative present" of the novel is that
of the character Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange (Heathcliff is his landlord).
Shocked and intrigued by his visits to Wuthering Heights, Lockwood the first narrator (story teller)
invites his housekeeper Nelly Dean to tell him the full "history." Thus, we are introduced to the
second and main narrator of the story: Nelly Dean was an eye-witness, a participant-narrator in
the "history" she will relate to Lockwoodand to us, the readers of Wuthering Heights. The "time
frame " of the narrative will thus shift back and forth between the "narrative past" (of Nelly Dean
re-telling the "history" of Wuthering Heights) the "narrative present" (of Lockwood being told the
"history" by Nelly Dean).
The character of participant-narrator Nelly Dean is especially important to analyze and
understand. In creating and choosing this character to be the primary narrator of WH, Emily Bronte
has set up a complex narrative frame. Many critics have asked and tried to answer why. One reason
may be to make WH more believable and "realistic. Nelly Dean seems firmly rooted in common
sense, every day, normative "reality," and thus helps to "authenticate"or make more "realistic"
and plausiblethe often wild, passionate, even fantastic story of WH. Yet Nelly Dean also
complicates our understanding of the characters and actions of the story, because she was a
"participant" in the past history she relates. Overall, she seems to be a "reliable" narratorbut -not
altogether nor always an objective, disinterested observer. She has opinions and interests invested in
the events and characters she presents to Lockwoodand to us. Keep in mind, then, that Nelly
"mediates" the storywe have access to the "history" only through her "mediating" point of
viewshe "filters" and can be tempted to "color" her account with her values, opinions, and
perspectives. For example, it becomes clear after awhile that she does not like the protagonist Cathy
Earnshaw: consider how Nellys attitude could affect and prejudice the way she represents the
original Cathy to Lockwoodand to us. Consider also that as a participant as well as a witness to
most of the events, she narrates, Nelly Dean may also have a stake in "coloring" her own part (or
blame) at times.