Assignment Wuthering Heights Emma Olsson Röst

English Literatures in the Transatlantic World

1. Discuss the narrative structure in the novel: who is telling the story? Who is the narrator?
Who is the frame narrator? Are they reliable? Use the novel to support points.

Wuthering Heights can be said to have two narrators. Mr Lockwood leads us into the novel
and is our first narrator as we at first get acquainted with some of the novel's characters. He
is the narrator through who are taken into the house at Wuthering Heights for the first time.
Mr Lockwood is an outsider, and we learn about the characters in the novel through his eyes
to begin with. He calls Heathcliff “a dark-skinned gypsy in aspect, in dress and manners a
gentleman – that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire” (Brontë, 2017 p. 5). This
leads the reader to believe that perhaps Mr Lockwood does not have such high expectations
of people who live in the countryside and therefore his descriptions may be prejudiced.

The second narrator is Mrs Dean who narrates everything that happened before Mr
Lockwood’s arrival as she tells the tale to him of the two different households and their
occupants. One of the aspects of Mrs Dean that makes her feel like a reliable narrator is the
fact that she does not always paint herself in a favourable light. She for instance tells us “I
related our compulsory visit and detention at the Height. I said Heathcliff forced me to go in,
which was not quite true.” (Brontë, 2017 p. 235) This shows the reader that though she
might have told a lie to Mr Linton at the time, she tells us, the reader, the truth.

2. Discuss the role of illness in the novel. For example, what illnesses? Physical? Mental?
How is illness described by the author? Who is affected by illness? Does illness have a plot
function? What is the function of illness in the narrative? What descriptions of illness in the
novel affected you as the reader the most? Support all your points with references to the
novel.

The illnesses in the novel are both mental and physical. In some instances, it can be argued,
it is portrayed in a way that the characters mental anguish manifests itself as physical illness.
Catherine (the elder) is one of the examples where emotional ill health is a trigger for her
physical illness. When Heathcliff has left and disappeared without trace Catherine becomes
so agitated and the doctor upon seeing her concluded that she was dangerously ill with a
fever (Brontë, 2017). Catherine’s illness is brought on by passion and she is a headstrong
person whereas Linton on the other hand is sickly in a different way. Though his illness can
also be said to be both of the mind and the body. He is a sickly person always, not like
Catherine who is vivid and full of life a lot of the time. Linton is described as an altogether
weak person, a weak constitution and of a weak mind. His illness is used by his father to put
pressure on Cathy (the younger) and Linton also uses his illness to make the people around
him do what he wants. He becomes less agreeable a character as the novel carries on and
with his weakness is what makes Cathy help him into the house where Mr Heathcliff then
locks her in to more or less force a marriage between her and his son. (Brontë, 2017 p. 224-
225)

3. Discuss aspects of Romanticism that you have found in the novel. For example, you can
pick one or more of the following topics to discuss: the figure of the outcast; the influence
and impact of nature; the wilderness; woman/man alone with nature (or any of the aspects
discussed above).

Heathcliff is the outcast in more than one aspect in the novel, first of all as a child he comes
seemingly from nowhere and no one is certain of his heritage or to whom he belongs. His
looks are described as “dirty, ragged, black-haired” (Brontë, 2017 p.31) and him as a person
as an it; “it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody
could understand” (Brontë, 2017 p.31). Then as he grows up, like a changeling in the family,
even though he befriends Catherine he still keeps his brutish ways and is still seen as other.
He is connected to the landscape around him and resembles the brooding moorland in
character. Catherine’s love for Heathcliff is part of the wildness in her, “I am Heathcliff!”
(Brontë, 2017 p.70) she exclaims and says that “my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal
rocks beneath” (Brontë, 2017 p.70) claiming that they are of the same, they have the same
nature and the same wilderness within.

Works cited

Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Alma Classics, 2017.