Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights

Nicholas Marsh

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9781350317666
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire moderne

Chapters on the narrative frame, characters, imagery and symbols, structure and themes use practical analysis to build and refine our insight into Wuthering Heights. Part Two gives information about Emily Brontë's life and works, a discussion of this novel's place in the development of fiction and a comparison of three important critical views. Suggestions for further reading, fully explained examples of analysis and suggestions for further work make this volume both accessible and a bridge to further study.

PART 1

ANALYSING WUTHERING HEIGHTS

1

The Narrative Frame

The story of Wuthering Heights centres on a group of characters – Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, Heathcliff, Edgar and Isabella Linton, and their three children. We can say that this ‘story’ begins when Heathcliff is brought into the Earnshaw family, when Catherine and Hindley are children; and ends with the marriage of Hareton Earnshaw and Catherine Linton/Heathcliff, and the death of Heathcliff himself. It is an exciting story, full of passions, marriages, births and deaths. However, it is important to remember that the author does not tell us this story: Wuthering Heights has a narrative frame. Another character, Nelly Dean, tells the story to Mr Lockwood, and he tells it to us. The first-person narrator of Wuthering Heights, then, is a long way removed from the actual experiences of the story. He only meets three of the main characters (Hareton and young Cathy, the two survivors of the younger generation; and Heathcliff), and he meets them as an unperceptive stranger, preoccupied by his own affairs, in the final year of their forty-year story.

Emily Brontë has devised an elaborate ‘frame’ for her story, then. In Wuthering Heights, the normal act of reading a fable related by an author is trebled: we read a fable narrated by a man who was told the story by a woman who was peripherally involved. This form places an insistent focus on the act of storytelling, and raises numerous questions: What is a ‘story’? What kind of an activity is ‘storytelling’? How should we navigate the complex relationship between any narrative account, and the thing – life – itself. An equally heavy emphasis is placed on the act of reading or ‘hearing’ the story, so we are provoked to question our own activity when we are engaged in reading the novel. How do we hear the things that are related to us? Do we accept a truth that has been filtered through the prejudices, and is imprisoned in the language, of successive narrators? Or do we believe we can reconstruct the original event, compensating for the different viewpoints that have coloured it? Is it reasonable to attempt such a reconstruction? Can a story exist independent of the language that tells it?

These questions go to the heart of how literature is written and read. Many modern critics are particularly interested in analysing the actions of language, in order to throw light onto literary activity itself. Some concentrate on words as the constituent elements of language, treating them as ‘signs’ which refer to a reality we can never reach because it can never be fully represented to us. Others see language and the act of storytelling as a ‘code’, which reader’---s are eager to break in order to reach through to the reality behind it. In this view, writers ‘encode’ a story which we attempt to ‘decode’. Yet other critics focus on the act of reading, as a hopeless search for ‘mastery’ of the text: hopeless because the authority of the story is constantly undermined by the act of narration, so that meaning retreats from us.

It is not our purpose to indulge in modern critical controversies in our first chapter. But we do begin with the recognition that Wuthering Heights tells its story in a particularly elaborate and questionable way, within a double frame. In this chapter we look at extracts which highlight the influence of the different narrators. From analysing specific passages, we hope to understand more about how and why Emily Brontë introduces such complex relationships between the original story and the reader, and how she plays the narrators off against each other.

Narrators

[a] Lockwood

We start with the first-person narrator, Mr Lockwood. He arrives in the story almost by chance, as a gentleman who has casually rented Thrushcross Grange, but who might have ‘fixed on’ a completely different part of ‘all England’. He has never been to that part of the country before, and immediately identifies himself as a newcomer by exclaiming ‘This is certainly a beautiful country!’; while the aura of diary or travelogue is enhanced by the bald statement of the date ‘1801’ followed by a dash, which is the first mark of the novel.

He writes because he has just visited Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights, and wishes to record his impressions. We will look at his description of the house, which is given on pages 4–6:

‘Joseph, take Mr Lockwood’s horse; and bring up some wine.’

‘Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose,’ was the reflection, suggested by this compound order. ‘No wonder the grass grows up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedge-cutters.’

Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man, very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy.

‘The Lord help us!’ he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent.

Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr Heathcliff’s dwelling, ‘Wuthering’ being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there, at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind, blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few, stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones.

Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door, above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins, and shameless little boys, I detected the date ‘1500,’ and the name ‘Hareton Earnshaw.’ I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the place from the surly owner, but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience, previous to inspecting the penetralium.

One step brought us into the family sitting-room, without any introductory lobby, or passage: they call it here ‘the house’ pre-eminently. It includes the kitchen and parlor, generally, but I believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether into another quarter, at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a clatter of culinary utensils, deep within; and I observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge fire-place; nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin cullenders on the walls. One end, indeed, reflected spendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after row, in a vast oak dresser, to the very roof. The latter had never been underdrawn: its entire anatomy lay bare to an inquiring eye, except where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes, and clusters of legs of beef, mutton and ham, concealed it. Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns, and a couple of horse-pistols, and, by way of ornament, three gaudily painted canisters disposed along its ledge. The floor was of smooth, white stone: the chairs, high-backed, primitive structures, painted green: one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade. In an arch, under the dresser, reposed a huge, liver-coloured bitch pointer surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies, and other dogs haunted other recesses.

The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as belonging to a homely, northern farmer with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee-breeches and gaiters. Such an individual, seated in his armchair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time, after dinner. But, Mr Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a dark-skinned gypsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman – that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss, with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure – and rather morose – possibly some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride – I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort; I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling – to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He’ll love and hate, equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again – No, I’m running on too fast – I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him. Mr Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way, when he meets a would-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a comfortable home, and only last summer, I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one.

(Wuthering Heights, pp. 4–6)¹

We are interested in the way Mr Lockwood expresses himself, first of all, as the story of Wuthering Heights comes to us through the filter of his language. What are the noticeable features of his language in this extract, and what conclusions about him can we draw based on these?

One insistent feature in this passage is Lockwood’s speculations. The language is filled with guesswork: ‘I suppose’, ‘perhaps’ and ‘I conjectured’ govern the three main statements about Joseph (that he is the only servant; his age; and that he repeatedly calls on God) when Lockwood meets him. When the narrative turns to describe the exterior of the house, Lockwood assumes the wild weather they ‘must have’, and uses the slanting vegetation to ‘guess’ the power of the wind. Amusingly, he attributes the same speculative approach to the housebuilder three-hundred years before, who ‘happily’ (meaning luckily) built the house strongly and with small windows. When Lockwood sees the date ‘1500’, he is curious and ‘would have . . . requested a short history of the place’; but the pattern of the extract, where Lockwood speculates but has no definite information, is maintained. Heathcliff looks morose, so Lockwood is deterred from asking his question.

The next paragraph, describing the interior of the house, further develops the sense that we observe phenomena and guess their explanation. Here, Lockwood ‘believes’ that the kitchen is a separate room. He can ‘distinguish’ kitchen noises but ‘observed no signs’ of cooking in the main room. Towards the end of this paragraph, vague and unexplainable distances again appear in the narrative: chairs and dogs are described, but more chairs are ‘lurking in the shade’; and ‘other dogs haunted other recesses’.

Finally we arrive at the description of Heathcliff, in the last paragraph of our extract. Notice that the first 73 words are devoted to describing an imagined farmer who is not like Heathcliff. Then comes the statement that he contrasts with his surroundings, and a much shorter description (47 words) of Heathcliff. The whole of the last half of the paragraph (144 words) is then given over to speculation about Heathcliff’s character, and revelation of Lockwood’s. Meanwhile, the motif of hesitant, uncertain language is continued in ‘perhaps’, ‘possibly’, ‘suspect’ and ‘may have’. In this paragraph, then, the narrator attempts to describe Heathcliff, but fails.

The effect of this style is to focus our attention on the act of narration itself. Lockwood is an observer who takes in sense-impressions and thinks about them, as does any person travelling through life; and he struggles to translate these impressions into words for us. Brontë’s repeated use of the language of guesswork and hesitant deduction never allows us to forget that the thing itself – Heathcliff and his house – is only relayed to us by means of a clumsy, struggling observer.

So far, then, we have found a consistent seam in Lockwood’s language which emphasises the act of narration, reminding us that the story comes to us via a narrative frame. We have also noticed that the Lockwood ‘filter’ only allows a small amount of solid material to reach us. So, for example, we saw that the paragraph about Heathcliff was 278 words long, but only 47 of these words conveyed reliable information. So, the frame restricts our information. The next question is: does it also change, distort or suppress information?

Two features of the extract suggest answers to these questions. First, Brontë begins to establish a contrast between the diction of the story itself, and the more elaborate language of the narrator; and secondly, the speculation about Heathcliff’s character which ends the extract also analyses the relationship between narrator and character, and contains a warning about judgements of character in general.

The ‘diction of the story itself’ is found in the characters’ direct speech, and in two words which Lockwood puts in quotation marks. This language comes to us direct from the story without interference, and is markedly plain. Heathcliff and Joseph both speak in monosyllables apart from the two names ‘Joseph’ and ‘Lockwood’. Heathcliff includes two imperatives, ‘take’ and ‘bring’. Their short, plain words are in sharp contrast to Lockwood’s narrative. Immediately after Heathcliff speaks, Lockwood uses ‘establishment’ and ‘domestics’; and following Joseph’s speech he uses ‘soliloquised’, ‘undertone’ and ‘displeasure’.

The two words in quotation marks are ‘wuthering’, the local term for wild stormy weather; and ‘house’. The first of these is a most suggestive word which provokes us to think of ‘weathering’ and ‘withering’, and has an indefinably onomatopoeic effect, the first syllable being reminiscent of a gust of wind. Lockwood’s commentary is typically elaborate, in contrast: it is ‘a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult’ and so on. ‘House’, the local word for the main room in a farmhouse, is directly contrasted to the most pompous, precious term in this part of Lockwood’s narrative. He calls the interior the ‘penetralium’.

In the final paragraph Lockwood becomes uncharacteristically sure of himself. Faced with Heathcliff’s ‘morose’ expression, he claims to understand the other man: ‘I know, by instinct’, he says, and then gives an analysis of Heathcliff’s character: ‘He’ll love and hate, equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again.’ When we have finished reading the novel, we are struck by the simultaneous perception and blindness of Lockwood’s instinct. However, Lockwood stops himself and returns to the guesswork that is typical of his narrative: ‘I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him’, he says, and acknowledges that Heathcliff may have motives he (Lockwood) has never imagined.

This is a fascinating passage, raising as it does the relationship between the storyteller and the character – whether they are real or imagined people. Brontë has established that the narrator cannot be neutral, that authors express their own characters in the stories and people they create. At the same time, the unknowable mystery of other people is affirmed. Heathcliff, like any character, has separate, free existence and infinite potential: he ‘may have entirely dissimilar reasons’ for appearing the way he does – reasons his author cannot imagine. The passage is particularly important as it arrives so close to the beginning of the novel, and marks Brontë’s concern with the question of narrative. It is like a declaration of her intention, to exploit the doubled narrative framework to the full.

We could notice further features of Lockwood’s style in this extract. Examining his sentences, for example, would show that he uses elaborate and educated constructions, and that he uses circumlocution and writes euphemistically (notice, for example, that ‘atmospheric tumult’ stands for ‘storm’). However, we ...