Narratorial Devices in Wuthering Heights

1. Narratorial Devices in Wuthering Heights Questions: Discuss the importance of Lockwood’s role as narrator Compare and contrast Lockwood and Nelly roles as narrators in the novel Is Nelly a reliable narrator? ‘The housekeeper, a matronly lady taken on as a fixture, along with the house.”In the light of the above statement, how reliable is Nelly as narrator of Wuthering Heights. (2010 A Level Question)

2. Narratorial Devices • Lockwood as narrator • His strengths and flaws as main narrator? • Nelly as narrator. • Is she reliable? • Gauge for reliability • Long term, connected to family, connected to both families, surrogate mother to Cathy?

3. Narratorial Devices • Other narrators • Heathcliff, Catherine, Isabella • How do they narrate? • Letters, diaries, eye-witness accounts • Gauge for reliability • Direct voice or written word more reliable? Why?

4. Narratorial Devices-Eye-witness account • Retrospective through eye-witnesses • These witnesses are ordinary people like use-therefore we identify with them. • Nelly and our impression of her as sensible and without any romantic illusions. • Altogether a believable person as she weighs down the supernatural elements on the story. • Her account is detached and yet able to capture feelings of the moment. • Her detachment minimises extreme feelings. • Her account is breathless as though she is experiencing it. Able to capture the mood. Shows she is bewildered and therefore we identify with her as we also feel her bewilderment. • Thus both Nelly and us share a common bond.

5. Lockwood-Frame within a frame-Eyewitness • Lockwood easily identifiable in today’s world. • Unable to select materials for narration-even told us his silly romantic story. • Makes us believe him to be truthful in his narration • He acknowledges that life at WH and TG-beyond him and this admission makes us believe him to be telling the truth

6. Use of the written word-Diary and Letter • Breathless letter by Isabella • First time readers able to see events in WH through the sane eyes of a TG inhabitant. Isabella is us readers as she and we confront the strange going on in WH • Letters are intimate-woman to woman with sexual secrets • Diary-bridge years • Diary-usually written by young girls-hence eye-witness account of the young Catherine • Written word cast in stone-cannot escape truthfulness of vision • Written word combined with verbal story-telling gives us complete picture of the events in WH

7. Narratorial devices • Long and rambling monologue • Direct voice coloured with emotions and timbre of person in distress-adds to veracity • Moral vision of Bronte presented through Nelly’s extreme words to describe Catherine-calls her ‘capricious’

8. Narratorial Devices • Have a common metaphor or symbol running throughout the novel to give a sense of consistency and togetherness to the various sub-plots that occur in the story. • Use of symbols of elements in conflict in the first generation and then achieving resolution and harmony in the second generation • Use of symbol of animals such as dog, wolf, to describe savage Heathcliff and continued right till the end of Heathcliff to show the extent and power of his revenge but also to show changes in his demeanour when he dies.

9. Bronte as impartial, detached writer who prefers to let characters do the talking • Bronte displays great subtlety in judging her characters. She hesitates writing her moral judgment but enjoys letting readers form own judgments through symbols, through the inexplicable and the unknown as if she wants to shock readers from their comfortable moral perch and show them that sometimes, characters are at the mercy of the animalistic, the landscape, the exterior and at the mercy of society rather than some internal moral fault. • We see obvious judgements very rarely. Largely, it is through the fantastic happenings that these characters are exposed to , that our opinions are moulded.