Unreliable Narration of Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontл's Wuthering Heights is the story of two intertwined families from late 18th century England through the beginning of the 19th century. Living on an isolated moor, the families interact almost exclusively with each other, repeatedly intermarrying and moving between the manors Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The reader hears the story from Lockwood, the tenant of Thrushcross Grange, through the housekeeper, Nelly Dean. After he inquires about Heathcliff, his strange landlord living at nearby Wuthering Heights, Nelly recounts her experiences with the Earnshaws, former owners of Wuthering Heights; the Lintons, former owners of Thrushcross Grange; and Heathcliff, a gypsy urchin adopted by Mr. Earnshaw. Nelly narrates the story inaccurately to downplay her own involvement and responsibility for the tragic events that occur in Wuthering Heights.

Nelly is an unreliable narrator. Lockwood is a poor judge of character who believes Nelly's every word, but upon meeting Catherine Heathcliff (Heathcliff's daughter-in-law), even he recognizes Nelly's inaccuracy. Cathy "'does not seem so amiable,' I thought, 'as Mrs. Dean would persuade me to believe. She's a beauty, it is true; but not an angel'" (327). Nelly knows the characters personally, and therefore has a biased opinion of them, embellishing some characteristics while downplaying others based on her experiences with them and her intentions. She later plans to bring together Lockwood and Cathy, so she portrays Cathy as a romantic and virtuous character to Lockwood in order to raise his opinion of her. Also, Nelly is more interested in telling an entertaining story than the truth. She admits that her intent is "to follow my story in true gossip's fashion..." (67). As such, we can assume that some of the harder to believe events--such as Heathcliff throwing a knife into his wife's neck--may have been added or embellished for interest's sake. Between Nelly's intentions to shape Lockwood's opinions of characters, her personal bias of the characters, and her desire to tell an engaging story, Nelly Dean acts as an unreliable narrator.

Nelly is more involved with the families than she leads Lockwood to believe. She attempts to portray herself as a transparent eye--one who experiences, but does not influence. We learn, however, that she is indeed involved beyond the role of an observer. Because her mother works for the Earnshaws, Nelly, as a child, becomes part of the Earnshaw family: "I got used to playing with the children" (37). The master, Mr. Earnshaw, treated her like one of his own children, and when he went to the city "he did not forget me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes. He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears" (37). He offers to bring her a treat from the city as he does his other children; although her gift is certainly less expensive than those he buys for his own children, it nonetheless displays her inclusion in the family. With such a relationship to her employers, she can never be a typical servant. From a young age she resists any demonstration of superiority by Catherine. "I would not bear slapping and ordering; and so I let her know" (44). For a servant to not accept being struck is understandable, but for a servant to refuse to take orders from her employers demonstrates the unconventional relationship that Nelly has with the Earnshaw family. As Nelly is so enmeshed with the family, any story regarding it would affect her life and be shaped by her influence. Early in Lockwood's narration, he says of Nelly, "She was not a gossip, I feared, unless about her own affairs" (34). As she goes on to tell the whole story, this line reveals that these events are her affairs--her life is tied irrevocably to the story she relates. Nelly is less of an objective observer and more of a participant in the events she relates than she makes it seem.

Nelly's involvement with the family causes many of the tragic events of the novel. While she tries to portray her function in the story as that of a transparent eye, she has emotions towards the characters that shape her actions and affect their lives. "Hindley hated him [Heathcliff]: and to say the truth I did the same; and we plagued and went on with him shamefully" (39). Her emotions towards Heathcliff lead her to be an accessory to, if not a participant in, his abuse. When they are children, Hindley throws an iron weight at Heathcliff, "hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it" (41). Heathcliff had threatened to and intended to inform Hindley's father of his cruel treatment. This would have most likely stopped his abuse, ending the chain of events that caused nearly all the tragic events of the novel. It would have made him less likely to degrade to the