Point of view in Wuthering Heights

When discussing about a book, many pepole don`t give importance to the point of
view although it has a major importance as it gives to the reader a perspective about the
story and changes the tone of the story according to the narrator.
Wuthering Heights is a fascinating novel in which we can discover the points of view
of two strategic characters that offer us the opportunity of a misterious ingression through
the developement of the action.
The main narrators of this novel are two peripheral characters: Nelly Dean and
Lockwood. The whole action, results from a combination of two speakers who outline the
events of the plot within the framework of a story within a story. We discover the main
points of view: one of Nelly Dean which tells the inner story and the other one of
Lockwood who creates the framestory.
In the framestory, Lockwood presents the meeting with a misterious family from
northern England who lived in a house named Wuthering Heights, while in the inner story,
Nelly Dean tells the story of two families in an objective eyewitness. From Nelly`s story we
know that she isn`t an omniscient narrator as she didn`t take at the events she tells about. Such
an event was the one when Heathcliff leaves one night and returns in the morning in a wild
mood. He tells Nelly a vague description of what has happened which isn`t enough for the
reader to be sure about what has happened during his departure. Through her story, Nelly
narates in a third person point of view, so even if the opinions and thoughts belong to the
characters, they are simply what Nelly supposes they felt in a certain moment.
Apart from Nelly, there is also Lockwood as character and narrator of the novel. He
gives through his story another perspective, as he narrates from an omniscient point of
view, because he tells the story by writing it in his diary. Through Lockwood as narrator,
we have the opportunity to realise exactly the way the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights act
from outside to inside looking. For example, when Lockwood takes dinner with Heathcliff
and the others at Wuthering Heights, we can see how Lockwood analizes and views these
people, and so, we realize how estranged this family is. By witnessing all these events in the
house, we discover Lockwood`s feelings and thoughts as he latereven dreams about how his
life would be if he were to marry Cathy. That makes us to imagine other different possible
endings of this novel.

These points of view Emily Bronte had chosen for her novel are extremely important
as the readers can feel more deeply the whole action of the story through the third
person point of view combined with the first person point of view. That even makes the
novel more complex and fascinating when reading it. Because if the story were told entirely
from one person`s point of view, the reader wouldn`t have such a panoramic view about the
whole action in the novel, and of course about the complexity of the characters. For example
if the story were told only from Heathcliff`s point of view, the reader would probabely
consider Edgar a vicious monster who stole Catherine away from her happiness; from
Catherine`s point of view only, the action of the book would finish eralier, when Catherine
dies in the midpoint of the book. But through Nelly`s story, the reader receives an entire
perspective of all the characters and most part of the events and with Lockwood as a narrator,
we step into the bitterness and the cold athmosphere that reigns in the Wuthering Heights
when Heathcliff was still alive. From Lockwood`s thoughts we get a sense of how unusual a
place as Wuthering Heights can be for an outsider.
However, between the two narrators, Nelly is considered by critics to have a
misterious and sometimes even malefic personality as she wants ``to gain control over the
two estates1. In fact all that Nelly wanted through her version of the story was to distort ``the
patterns of the events in order to justify her decision and actions to Lockwood, who knows
nothing about what has happened and believes her account from the begining.2
Unlike Nelly, Lockwood as a narrator and character in this novel is intelligent and perceptive,
and we can see that from the way he creates subtle changes in some situations like the one in
chapter 2 when he comments on the ``door (that were) barred in day time.3 Therefore, E.
Bronte considers Lockwood a functional tool to instigate the element of suspense and trace
the process of metamophosis in the novel. Still, Nelly Dean seems to rule over the story in
many situations, as some critics noticed that ``most of the scenes in the novel receive some
imprint from Nelly`s character or position.4
In conclusion, no matter the narrative transimissions,each re-telling of the history of
events transforms that history into a new construct, displacing it further from its lost origin. It
1 Shunami, Gideon, The Unreliable Narrator in Wuthering Heights. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.
27, No. 4(Mar., 1973), pp 451
2 Shunami, Gideon, The Unreliable Narrator in Wuthering Heights. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.
27, No. 4(Mar., 1973), pp 451
3 Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Heritage Publishers, 2007

is undoubted that E. Bronte possessed a unique narrative style through which involved
phisically and psychologically two memorable narrators. Due to her talent, E. Bronte received
many appreciations and one of these is of Charles Percy Sanger in the Norton Critical Edition
of Wuthering Heights at p. 336. Charles Percy appreciates that ``There is so far as I know, no
other novel in the world which it is possible to subject to an analysis of the kind I have tried
to make (which is exhaustive and extensive). This in itself makes the book very unusual... (the
perspectives of the novel) throw a light on the character of Emily Bronte and her book...it
demonstrates the vividness of the author`s imagination.

Refferences:
1. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Heritage Publishers, 2007. Print.
2. Shunami, Gideon, The Unreliable Narrator in Wuthering Heights. Nineteenth-Century
Fiction, Vol. 27, No. 4(Mar., 1973), pp 449-468
3. Woodring, Carl R. The Narrators of Wuthering Heights. Nineteenth Century Fiction.
Berkeley: U of California P, 1957. 298-305. Print.
4. https://sites.google.com
5. http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/

4 Woodring, Carl R. The Narrators of Wuthering Heights. Nineteenth Century Fiction.Berkeley: U

of California P, 1957, 304