Emily Brontes Narration in Wuthering Heights - Essay Example

Emily Bronte’s narration in Wuthering Heights Thesis Wuthering Heights as the only novel written by Emily Bronte can be considered the greatest reflection of her craftsmanship and creativity. A variety of narrators and different narrative techniques resulted in a multi-layered narration. Introduction In contract to her famous sister Charlotte, Emily Bronte wrote only one novel. However, it represents the real masterpiece and made her famous. Emily managed to reflect all her thoughts and attitudes in only one writing. Bronte’s manner of narration in Wuthering Heights is the reflection of author’s attitude and position concerning contextual background and a social role a certain hero plays in the novel. By means of dialogues the author managed to reflect her views on different social roles and her attitudes towards them. For example, dialect is used in the novel by Joseph. The rest of the characters speak Standard English. In such a way, the author intended to use dialect as a tool shaping further fictional world (Onega & Landa, 1996; Mills, 1996). Characters and manner of narration Still, Bronte’s attempts to make this character special by means of his using a dialect has not always been approved by the critics. Vice versa, they claimed that Bronte had serious technical problems while presenting to the readers Joseph’s speech: "This is tway ont-up at sun-dahn; dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und canle lught till next day, at nooin-then, tfooil gangs banning un raving tuh his chamer, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i thur lugs fur varry shaume; un th knave, wah, he carn cahnt his brass, un ate, un sleep, un off tuh his neighbours tuh gossip wi t wife" (Bronte, p. 143). The reader who is aware of Yorkshire dialect can interpret these words correctly. The rest of readers read these lines like a chain of mystifying information. Another character who was supposed to speak some kind of dialect but he really did not was Heathcliff. Still, his speech was described as “unintelligible” and it refers to his status of "the gipsy-the plough boy" (Bronte, p. 134). Heatchcliff is a violent character and though Bronte does not exactly encode his speech to the readers, she does not intend to correlate Victorian virtue by means of Standard English. A correlation of Heatchcliff’s speech with Catherine and Hindley, reflects Bronte’s intention to show that his not story is not social at all. She underlines a psychological drama of the hero in such a way. Moreover, the hero becomes a center of the novel and it is implied that not his social position, but his relationships with other characters would attract attention of the readers. Dialect in Wuthering Heights follows fictional and not social paths. Joseph’s dialect provides exact coordinates for the fictional development of the novel. In accordance with Ferguson (1998): “dialect does not out of carelessness or Brontes attempt to thwart the socio-linguistic code of the time, but because this ficto-linguistic use of the dialect to isolate Joseph reinforces the novels critique of Victorian morality” (Ferguson 1998, p. 12). Therefore, by means of providing readers with speech peculiarities of the main characters, Bronte underlined either social status of a character (Joseph) or psychological conditions of a character (Heatchcliff). A manner of narration of Bronte is the framework of the novel. This suggestion can be proven by the fact that in spite of speech peculiarities transfer to the readers, Bronte managed to used different narrators, for example when readers see the drama from the perspective of Lockwood and Nelly Dean (Heatchcliff). These characters have a pragmatic worldview and the ideas they share between them are saturated by a deep psychological spirit. Therefore, Bronte does not intend to show a pragmatic nature of Nelly Dean, for example, but making this character of such nature allows Bronte to show “that now Nelly Deans experienced old eyes and memory can be dispensed with assures us of the present reasonableness and objectivity of events, and even infects retrospection on what has happened earlier— making it possible for the dream-rejecting reason to settle complacently for the "naturalness" of the entire story” (Bloom, 1987). Nelly’s narrative technique differs from Lockwood’s one. She uses colloquial language, vivid images, and descriptions, e.g. when she talks about Heathcliff’s life, she says: “It’s a cuckoo’s, sir - I know all about it, except where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money at first. And that Hareton, has been cast out like a unfledged dunnock” (Bronte, p. 76). Nevertheless, Nelly describes characters only from her own perspective that is restricted by religious and cultural sentiments. Rhetorical nature of Bronte’s novel has been always vividly discussed by the critics. For example, if to consider a manner of narration of Nelly (she narrates in the first person), then it is clear that events are described by Nelly in an unprejudiced manner (Williams, 1998; Zerweck, 2001). On the one hand, Bronte has a special attitude to her characters and at the same time she wants her readers to interpret the words said by the characters in a manner they like. Moreover, the author gives confidence to her readers in the objectivity and clearness of the language she uses (Dunn 1999, p. 247). Thus, the author exactly provides the readers with the words of the characters and underline by a manner of narrative techniques used, what was their real intention (Bloom, 1987). For example, Cathy getting mad, speaks like a crazy person; she becomes mad and she loses a flood of her memory: "Bonny bird; wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor…This feather was picked up from the heath, the bird was not shot—we saw its nest in winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old ones dare not come. I made him promise hed never shoot a lapwing, after that, and he didnt" (Bloom, 1987). In this case Bronte transfers a condition of psychological madness of a girls and her speech is a direct reflection of her unhealthy state. Moreover, Cathy tries to speak about Heathcliff, but her words are vague and affluent. The role of narration is perfectly described by Bloom (1987) in the following way: “Wuthering Heights is an annunciation of excommunication, both a fabrication in language of the real world—of that which is outside language (ex-communication)—and then again an explusion of the heretic from its own textuality. The outsider from that "real world" who enters the closed space of Wuthering Heights is peremptorily banished” (Bloom 1987, p. 74). Therefore, only those readers, who pay attention to the narration techniques used in the novel, can penetrate into the depths of fictional world of Emily Bronte. Moreover, it can be claimed that in such a way Bronte wanted to show a fictional world to the readers as a real world. A constant struggle between these two worlds is clearly shown throughout the novel. Some critics (Hennelly, 2004; Levy, 1996; Lukits, 2008) have even stated, that Bronte wanted to show that no exact limits can be set between fictional and real world. The boundary is vague and the readers should perceive the characters and the plot like participants of a real life. On the example of a manner of narration of Lockwood, it is interesting to trace that “the imaginative possibility of a language that means what it says and refers to a realm outside the insanity of its own self-reflection” should be considered not only as a character’s peculiarity, but also as the author’s special narrative technique. Lockwood talks about situation “as is” and his narration is presented in the form of his diary (Mengham, 1998). Neverthelss, unlike Nelly, this narrator is very attentive; for example, in the following manner he described Cathy: “the little witch” and her voice is “as sweet as a silver bell” (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002). Thus, Lockwood’s perceptions about the characters have been transformed in accordance with the metamorphoses happened to the characters. Hareton was at first “a boor and a clown” and then has changed into “a young man respectably dressed” man. Moreover, his sentences are complex: “he probably swayed by the presidential considerations of the folly of offending a good tenant - released a little in the laconic style of chipping of his pronouns and auxiliary and introducing what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me” (Bronte, p. 54). Conclusion Wuthering Heights as the only novel written by Emily Bronte can be considered the greatest reflection of her craftsmanship and creativity. A variety of narrators and different narrative techniques resulted in a multi-layered narration. Bronte has a special attitude to her characters and at the same time she wants her readers to interpret the words said by the characters in a manner they like. Moreover, the author gives confidence to her readers in the objectivity and clearness of the language she uses. Bronte’s attempts to make this character special by means of his using a dialect has not always been approved by the critics as well the rhetorical nature of Emily’s novel that has always been vividly discussed by different scholars. As far as we can see, the narration techniques of Emily Bronte set the spirit of the novel. The readers’ reaction to the novel is being shaped under the influence of sophisticated narrative techniques that enable them to give their personal judgment to the plot and characters of the novel. A multi-layered narration has resulted in a complex social and psychological novel, where fiction borders with reality. References 1. Bloom, Harold, ed. 1987. Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights. New York: Chelsea House. 2. Bronté, Emily, 1999. Wuthering Heights. 1924. United States: Trident Press International. 3. Dunn, Richard J. 1999. "The Birth of "Wuthering Heights": Emily Bronte at Work."Studies in the Novel 31:247. 4. Ferguson, S. L., 1998. Drawing Fictional Lines: Dialect and Narrative the Victorian Novel. Style 32 (1): 1+. 5. Hennelly, Mark M. 2004. "Wuthering Heights: The "Initiatory Step"." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 25:94+. 6. Levy, Eric P. 1996. "The Psychology of Loneliness in Wuthering Heights.." Studies in the Novel 28:158+. 7. Lukits, Steve. 2008. "The Devastated Nest: Crises of Identity in Wuthering Heights and Antigone." Mosaic (Winnipeg) 41:103+. 8. Mengham, Rod, 1988. Emily Bronté: Wuthering Heights. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 9. Mills, Pamela. 1996. "Wylers Version of Brontës Storms in Wuthering Heights."Literature/Film Quarterly 24:414+. 10. Onega, Susana and Jose Angel Garcia Landa, 1996. Introduction. Narratology. London, New York: Longman, 1996. 1-41. 11. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. 2002. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. 12. Williams, Jeffrey. 1998. Theory and the Novel: Narrative Reflexivity in the British Tradition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 13. Zerweck, Bruno. 2001. "Historicizing Unreliable Narration: Unreliability and Cultural Discourse in Narrative Fiction." Style 35:151+. Read More