Unreliable Narrators in Wuthering Heights: Nelly Dean and Lockwood ¦ WH Guide Ep.2
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- Опубликовано: 3 авг 2024
- In the second episode of this reader's guide to Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté, we look at the role that the unreliable narrator plays in the story. Can we trust Nellie Dean and Lockwood?
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What do you make of Nelly Dean and Lockwood?
Not a fan of either of them. I think Nelly is very judgemental and Lockwood even worse!
@@roryhoon7383 You're not wrong! Although I do have a soft spot for Nelly. What a crazy world to live in.
Did Nelly have a thing for Hindley? Or am I imagining it?
@@cowboynyc I can definitely see that!
I always found Nelly to be a bit of a bully and untrustworthy
Something I noticed is that Lockwood's biases seem to be set in class; he calls heathcliffe, an upper class man, a capital fellow before they even meet, and the character who he seems to dislike the most, Joseph, has a thick, "lower class" accent. Even Nelly is not safe from these biases. Lockwood does not seem to value her wishes when she tells him that it is late and she will continue the story the next day, instead insisting that HE will sleep late that day.
I think the thing to keep in mind when talking about Nelly is that she is an employee first and foremost. She is employed by various characters in novel and pretty much everyone she talks about is in a position that is superior to her. Maybe aside from Heathcliff and Hareton and that is only for certain periods of time. She is pretty much always in a position of lesser power than the one she's been telling her story about. Or even telling her story to at one point as well cause Lockwood also abuses this power at one time. I don't really think he means any harm by it but he also forces Nelly to tell the story even if it is late and she says she'd rather stop at that point.
That's because she isn't really in position to say say 'no' other than lightly hint at it because doing so would mean losing her job and that would mean risking losing her livelihood.
None of the other characters really get this though (including Lockwood). To them she is always the nice woman around the house, someone they can rely on and trust and that is so perfectly seen with how Nelly and Cathrine crash at some points. Remember that time when Cathrine wanted to tell Nelly so much about a dream she had and Nelly was just trying to get her to stop because she didn't want to have that conversation? Because Nelly was superstitious, it scared her and she feared she might have to give a whole dream analysis she didn't want to give. She even tried to tell Cathrine to stop but she just didn't and than kept on telling her things Nelly didn't want to hear.
Cathrine on the other hand was probably way to used to seeing Nelly as just the nice housekeeper who's always there for everyone and forgot or was too naive to see the human behind the person working for them. I don't really blame Cathrine here as that is something so many other characters have done as well although to varying degrees.
Nelly is not evil, nor do I believe she's actually lying about anything. She still cares a whole lot and she's telling the truth as much as she can and I can't blame her either if she makes mistakes at some points even if they turn out to be fatal. Everyone expects so much from her, wants her to so so much emotional labor for them (most evidently in Cathrine) that I can't help but feel lots of sympathy for Nelly.
Also if what you said in the first video is true and Emily Bronte really worked for some time as a governess and didn't like it, she must have at least to some extent felt what all of that is like too and it wouldn't surprise me if she expressed it at least a little with Nelly Dean.
There's one thing I wonder if Emily Bronte knew. The name Nellie comes from Helen, which means torch. Zillah means shade. It seems to imply which one will throw light one what's going on and which one won't.
That's really interesting!
The young Cathy Linton was a narrator as well. When Nelly was ‘laid up’ she sneaked out and went to the Heights almost every single day to see her cousin Linton Heathcliff and there were definitely important things happening during that time. Hareton, Joseph were involved from time to time. I was so surprised that you mentioned the obvious similarity between Nelly and Zillah because I felt the same way and even wondered whether they were twins/doppelgänger of some kind!
Really love your analysis and wish to see you talk about the second generation more. I personally think it is more interesting
Nelly has good reason to criticize Zellah for finding Cathy “haughty”; the girl- after being imprisoned for a week, her Father’s death, being forced to marry Linton, and having her assets effectively stolen- is basically re-imprisoned with people who don’t like her; meanwhile, her Mother endured no such circumstances- Nelly’s characterization of her as “haughty” was accurate.
Nelly was a villain in the story to me, she meddled so much in everybody's business and was so sneaky and judgmental.
Thank you very much for these videos. It helped me a lot to better understand the story, and added additional joy to reading the book. I thought Nelly is a very interesting narrator as she was admitting how her involvement have led to bad consequences sometimes, although she would give herself excuses. Lockwood is also very interesting and his role as the ignorant yet persistent unwelcomed guest at Wuthering heights was very funny and humor, he made me laugh at times.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the videos. Although I didn't mentioned it, I agree with you about Lockwood. In a way I also feel sorry for him. Imagine finding out that Heathcliff is your landlord!
Lockwood seems like a strange man to me. He makes faces at the dogs, he imposes himself when he is not welcome, and he has a strange story about his awkward behavior at the beach, wherein he tries to flirt with a young lady, who flirts back, but then he ignores her. He is a bit of an awkward, nosey character.
I'm glad you picked up on Nelly not being the most reliable lady! Like you I think shes not a liar but defintely biased and judgemental too
I can’t wait to reread and notice all these things! 😍 thank you for making this video ❤️
I am glad you found it helpful! :)
Brilliantly insightful! Thank you so much! ^_^
Amazin, I will certainly cite you for my essay!
it's always great to have multiple narrators, it provides more objectivity as you said and breaks monotony! as in W.H Charles Dickens did excellent job in having two narrators in "Bleak House" and was absolutely brilliant for me.
Totally agree, especially with your point about Bleak House. I especially like how it's a contrast between a first and third person narrator. You don't get that very often!
@@JoshuaJClarkeKelsall indeed an outstanding style of writing and it's great novel .
Quick question Mr. Joshua what would be the exact disadvantage tho I see an advantage of this narrative is having more POV's and more objectivness but what would be a disadvantage of having so many narrators? Ty for the vid btw
Very interesting, thank you!
My pleasure!
THANK YOU SO MUCH SIR
4:35 , 6:40, 9:10 incredible take
Excellent. In a way, there's an another unreliable narrator in Emily's use of a male pseudonym, Ellis Bell. A vicar's daughter writing Wuthering Heights...crikey.
In the U.S. we have the Preacher's Kid (PK) stereotype, the wild ones who act out all of their straitlaced parents' repressions. (I graduated from high school with one.) Emily Bronte tells a story that her parents could not bear to hear, nor even imagine.
@@cowboynyc ~ Fascinating! Thank you for sharing :)
In my opinion, way too much is made of the “unreliable narrator” theme. Narrators can dislike characters and still provide a perfectly accurate representation. If someone starts bashing me on the head and then I tell you about it, do I become an unreliable narrator when I add that I don’t like the guy (because he just bashed me on the head)? No, of course not. Biased and unreliable are distinct.
And, we’re expected to, largely, take the narrator’s story on face value. When we begin questioning every aspect of the story it becomes absurd and also loses its significance; if the truth is actually different than the story we’re reading, what’s the value in the story? We’re supposed to judge the story we read- whether it’s perfectly accurate or not is really beyond our purview.
I think it depends on the story and you can't give a blanket rule about whether the unreliable narrator applies or not. In the case of Wuthering Heights, we do get the story told from multiple perspectives, and those perspectives contradict each other. So in that case, it seems that some degree of unreliability is present.
Respecting Nelly, my claim is not that she is lying about Catherine's physical abuse, or that her dislike of Catherine is unreasonable or wrong, but rather, to note that because she dislikes her, that will give a negative spin on how she interprets Catherine's motivations which, of course, are not obvious to anyone since they are inside Catherine.
Those are my thoughts on this topic, thanks for your comments!
@@JoshuaJClarkeKelsall but you can absolutely dislike someone while providing a perfectly accurate representation of them, devoid of any slant.
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