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The narrative of Wuthering heights is as great a mystery as the content of it : Born to a clergyman from Yorkshire, Brontë was just six when she left home to join a harsh boarding school. After two of her siblings death, Emily and her sister Charlotte (author of Jane Eyre ) returned back home, where, with their sister Anne and their brother Branwell, they created a complex fantasy world; they wrote a series of stories, plays, and poems, some of which they later collected and published. Though Emily left home several times, she always returned to the much loved moors of her childhood. She published Wuthering Heights the year before she died of tuberculosis in 1848. Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights is one of the exceptional novels of the Victorian era. The novel is distinguished for the narrative technique which was very new at that time. The form of Wuthering heights is very likewise to that of a novel by Conrad, the stories here also introduced to us through the eyes of a character who is not concerned in the central drama the story is told partly by Nelly the housekeeper of the Linton family and partly by Mr. Lockwood who takes charge Thrushcross Grange on rent after Edgar Linton’s death such a technique serves two purposes firstly to make sure that we witnessed a drama in all reality in which it would have shown itself to its readers secondary since these readers are detached and normal, we witness it as it really was undisturbed by the emotions of the people involved in it. In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses a complicated narrative structure where characters’ stories are conveyed by a chain of narrators until they are at the end recorded in a journal through a stranger’s point of view. This stranger is Lockwood, a character who, just like the readers , is meeting the mysterious residents of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange for the first time. An impatient Lockwood begins to hear the authentic account of what went on in
these two houses from Nelly Dean, who may not be the most reliable narrator due to her loyalty towards some of the characters and animosity towards others. To make up for the gaps in Nelly’s story, Bronte introduces other narrators, who relate to the gaps of the narrative that Nelly was not a part of. Bronte uses this intricated web of narrators to present various perspectives of each character so that readers are getting the most objective and reliable interpretation of the affairs that occurred at Wuthering Heights. The viewpoint that Lockwood offers readers of the characters at Wuthering Heights is disorganized and confused. Lockwood makes a mistake in his descriptions of the people he meets, calling Heathcliff “ a capital fellow ” and mistaking Cathy to be his wife. eventually, Lockwood notes that he “ began to feel unmistakably out of place in( the) affable family circle ” at Wuthering Heights. Yet, Lockwood’s inadequacy to convey factual information does not alienate him from the novel ; rather, it makes him more relatable because Lockwood’s puzzlement and confusion mirrors the readers’ amusement and passions at this point. By putting Lockwood and the readers in the same situation ( both are being introduced to the characters at the same time), Bronte is constituting a narrator that readers can trust and rely on to tell them an sincere story. Through Lockwood, Bronte is also influencing the feelings of the novel. After Lockwood becomes thrilled with Nelly’s tale, Nelly becomes the primary narrator of Wuthering Heights. Nelly acts as a corroboration of the events that she describes, which would make her feel reliable at first regard, but because Bronte relates Nelly’s story in the fashion that she tells it to Lockwood, Nelly is suitable to choose which details to tell Lockwood and, thus, the readers depending on what suits her own record and this makes Nelly an unreliable narrator, she is an omniscient narrator. Nelly makes it very clear where her faithfulness lie. Before beginning her story, she says that “ Miss Cathy is( the last) of us — I mean, of the Lintons ” , because
Earnshaw family. Isabella's history also serves another purpose to provide Lockwood with information about events that Nelly was not a part of. Heathcliff's description of how he dug up Catherine's grave was somethng that only he could tell. Wuthering heights, as a critic concludes, is not an incoherent novel. On the contrary, its widespread outline is perfectly logical. Nor is it an inconceivable story. On the frame on which it is created, every incident in it is the inevitable consequence of the situation. Nor is it unrelated from the central issues of human life. Like Hamlet and the Divine Comedy , this novel is concerned with the chief problems of man and his destiny in the world. Like Paradise Lost it lays down to justify the ways of God to man. No novel in the world has a more magnificent theme. At first Wuthering Heights can be really confusing and remain a mystery for readers due to it’s complicated line of narrative technique but eventually the readers are exposed to the bigger picture of the novel and understand the world that Brontë introduced to us through this wonderful novel, Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte creates atmosphere and mystery using her own artistic skills through a method which is called Palimpsestic, which is narratives within narratives. Novel at that time was a very new genre and many writers did not experiment with it but Bronte added some kind of supernatural elements in the narration which gives the novel a Gothic atmosphere. And so, the constant use of supernaturalism, turbulence in the ambience and gothic elements adds to the mystery, anxiety and unpredictability of the novel.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary source: Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Print. Secondary source: Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3rd ed., Manchester University Press, 2009. Bell, Vereen. “ Wuthering Heights as Epos.” College English, vol. 25, no. 3, Dec., 1963, pp. 199- 208. Grove, Robin. “The Poor Man’s Daughter’s Tale: Narrative and System in Wuthering Heights.” The Critical Review , no. 36, 1996, pp. 32-40. London, Bette. “ Wuthering Heights and the Text Between the Lines.” Papers on Language & Literature , vol. 24, no. 1, 1988, pp. 34-52. McCarthy, Terence. “The Incompetent Narrator of Wuthering Heights.” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 42, no.1, 1981, pp. 48-64. Tytler, Grame. “The Parameters of Reason in Wuthering Heights.” Bronte Studies , vol. 30, no. 3 Nov. 2005, pp. 231- 241.
