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Understanding roles
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Nelly in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights
In a novel where everything is turned upside down and every character plays a role they probably shouldn’t, Nelly Dean’s role is the most ambiguous. As both Lockwood’s and the reader’s narrator, Nelly plays the role of the storyteller. Yet at the same time, Nelly is also a character in the story that she tells, occupying a vast array of roles. As a character within her own tale, Nelly attempts to manipulate the actions of her fellow characters. The best way for the reader to understand both Nelly’s role in the novel and her manipulative actions is to see Nelly as being representative of the author. Authors occupy roles that are similarly as ambiguous as Nelly’s role, acting as both writers of and characters in their own stories, often unwittingly writing aspects of themselves into a large variety of roles within their own novels. Furthermore, Nelly’s manipulative actions and biases are analogous to an author’s exertions to move the narrative in accordance with her artistic vision. The multiplicity and ambiguity of Nelly’s roles as well as Nelly’s clearly manipulative maneuvers to alter the plot ultimately implicate Nelly in the meta-fictional role of representing the author.
Nelly’s role in Wuthering Heights is inherently ambiguous because she occupies a vast array of roles throughout the course of the narrative. Who she is and what niche she fills depends on the characters with whom she interacts and on the situations in which she is immersed, resulting in great ambiguity over Nelly’s exact role in the novel. This lack of clarity arises before Nelly’s narrative even begins. When we first encounter Nelly, we know that she is the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange. ...
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...other, or a matchmaker; she is all four at the same time. This multiplicity in roles, as well as her exertions to manipulate her fellow characters, implicates Nelly in the role of the author, who both occupies the role of all of her characters and manipulates those characters to act as she wishes them to. As a reader, it is easy to dismiss Nelly as merely being a means to an end. It is because of Nelly that we are allowed the opportunity to hear the story of Wuthering Heights, but the narrative certainly does not revolve around her, and nor should it. The author herself should never occupy more space than her story. Yet by performing a meta-analysis on Nelly’s role, we can see the importance of not simply dismissing such a character, because her presence says just as much about the turbulences of passion for love as it does about the passion for a writer’s art.
Both women are passed from master to master because of no true faults of their own, and neither woman seems to have much control over her own destiny. While Nelly Dean stays with the same family, she has to move and get accustomed to new bosses every time some one dies. Felicite just seems to have plain bad luck in her choice of employers at the beginning of her career. In spite of this, both women seem quite satisfied with their lives, while the people who are in charge of them seem a lot less happy with their own lives. The characters in ‚"Wuthering Heights‚" frequently have severe fits of negative emotion, while Nelly quietly looks on.
Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Brontë distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Brontë perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.
The contemporary reviewers of Bleak House fall into two categories when discussing its structure. There are those who like it and there are those who do not. More specifically, those who dislike the novel’s construction complain of the absence of plot and lack of connection between characters and their actions. Opposing this view are the reviewers who find the characters in Bleak House remarkably intertwined in the story, especially since it was written as a series for a literary magazine.
Over a long period of time, an individual’s social status has always had a great impact on relationships between others. Relationships such as friendship, romance and even family relationships are greatly influenced by one’s social status. When people value social status to the utmost importance, it often acts as a barrier to further solidify relations with others. “Wuthering Heights” is a classic novel written by Emily Bronte which illustrates how social status gets in the way of relationships. This story (set in eighteen hundreds) displays the true nature of the people at that time because they excessive had pride. Since they had excessive pride, they often judged people based on their social class; hence changing their relationship between each other. In this novel social class was measured by observing an individual’s wealth, appearance and manners. Heathcliff happens to be the male lead character of this story that lacks social class due to his rebellious relationship with Hindley. Afterwards, Hindley degrades Heathcliff’s status this affects his connections with Catherine and Nelly. Since Heathcliff’s status diminishes, Catherine becomes reluctant to continue her affair with Heathcliff. Nelly also becomes wary of Heathcliff because his personality changes after restoring his own status. Thus, it is clearly seen that social class has an impact on the story by altering Heathcliff’s relationship between Hindley, Catherine and Nelly.
The setting used throughout the novel Wuthering Heights, helps to set the mood to describe the characters. We find two households separated by the cold, muddy, and barren moors, one by the name of Wuthering Heights, and the other Thrushcross Grange. Each house stands alone, in the mist of the dreary land, and the atmosphere creates a mood of isolation. These two places, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange differ greatly in appearance and mood. These differences reflect the universal conflict between storm and calm that Emily Bronte develops as the theme.
Throughout Wuthering Heights, I attempted to learn from the characters misery that they had, in most cases, brought upon themselves. Catherine’s difficulty making her decision reiterated to me how important it is to follow your heart when in a relationship, even if there are ‘good reasons’ to do just the opposite. From Heathcliff, I was able to see how seeking revenge will only destroy your happiness as well as the one’s you love. Young Cathy was a perfect example of the power of positivity, and how to indulge in negative thoughts will only add to your burden and isolate you from friends and family. Whether Emily Bronte intentionally wrote the novel with moral lessons in mind or not, her characters are perfect examples of how not to live.
her because she does try to do what she thinks is best for her and
Lockwood and Nelly as the Obvious Narrators in Wuthering Heights Although Lockwood and Nelly serve as the obvious narrators, others are
In the 1847 novel of Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte brilliantly employs frame narrative in order to tell a story within a story. The character of Ellen Dean, known formally as Nelly, tells of the past and present from her first person perspective, to the visiting Mr. Lockwood. She depicts the events as she recalls them that transpired during her years at the respective houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. She talks of the past as she remembers it, and also from what she sees, hears or finds out through the other characters’ words and actions. Although Nelly is basing the characters solely on her own interpretation of them, she is a pretty reliable source, having grown up with the first generation of characters and cared for the second.
As foreshadowed by the title of the article, The Absent Mother in Wuthering Heights, Wion believes that Brontë’s mother dying when she was three had a large impact on her writing and it is part of the way that she deals with her loss. Wion believes that Nelly represents Brontë’s attempt at coming to terms with the loss of her mother by writing about and becoming, in fantasy, a mother herself. Wion attributes a great many aspects of Wuthering Heights to the author’s mother’s death including the death of all of the mothers in the novel (p. 367). While Wion attributes many things to Brontë’s unconscious, he also believes there are a number of things she consciously did which the thought or idea of she may never have entertained. For example, he believes that Brontë is aware of the fact that Catherine and Heathcliff’s love appears to be modeled off of the primal bond between a mother and child. Other statements such as “Narrative juxtapositions suggest that the mother-child relationship is on Brontë’s mind” (p. 367), lead us to question his assertions due to the fact that the novel was written over 160 years ago; therefore Wion can hardly say that he knows what is going on in the author’s mind at the time of writing the
Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Bronte, has 323 pages. The genre of Wuthering Heights is realistic fiction, and it is a romantic novel. The book is available in the school library, but it was bought at Barnes and Nobles. The author’s purpose of writing Wuthering Heights is to describe a twisted and dark romance story. Thus, the author conveys the theme of one of life’s absolute truths: love is pain. In addition, the mood of the book is melancholy and tumultuous. Lastly, the single most important incident of the book is when Heathcliff arrives to Edgar Linton’s residence in the Granges unannounced to see Catherine’s state of health. Heathcliff’s single visit overwhelmed Catherine to the point of death.
The famous saying that from a true love to a great hatred is only a
The narration of the story is very unique and divergent because there are multiple narrators. Bronte’s character Lockwood is used to narrate the introductory and concluding sections of the novel whereas Nelly Dean narrates most of the storyline. It’s interesting that Nelly Dean is used because of her biased opinions.
The novel explores gender roles through the characters of Mrs. Ramsay, Mr. Ramsay, and Lily. Each of these characters embodies different views in regards to gender roles. The readers are taken into their minds and thoughts and are allowed to see what each character views is the role of his/her gender.
Bronte's Use of Language and Setting in Wuthering Heights Between pages 15 and 18 there are identifiable ways in which 'Bronte' uses 'language and setting' to establish the characters and create a distinguishable atmosphere. In this essay, themes, genres and styles will be discussed to show how 'Bronte' establishes the characters; there will also be a discussion of the 'gothic' elements which Wuthering Heights contains. Many people would argue that the style of 'Wuthering Heights' is peculiar and complex, the power of Wuthering Heights owes much to its complex narrative structure and to the device of having two conventional people relate a very unconventional tale. Bronte importantly introduces the element of 'the supernatural' into chapter 3 which is an important technique as it grips the reader. Lockwood has come into contact with the ghost of Cathy, who died 18 years before, Some might argue that she is a product of Lockwood's imagination, and it is clear that Bronte has presented these facts in this way so that the reader can make up their own mind on the subject.