Narration in Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is praised and celebrated for many reasons, including for its unique narrative style. It is told by Mr. Lockwood, the current tenant of Thrushcross Grange, who commissions his housekeeper Nelly Dean to tell him the story of his neighbours at Wuthering Heights. He records her stories in his diary, which forms the great majority of the novel. While Nelly Dean and Lockwood are the principal narrators, there are brief interruptions by …

…of Wuthering Heights and the Grange. The elaborate narrative technique involving all characters being narrators applied by Bronte in the novel is confusing, yet interesting. Her use of this style introduces dangers and disadvantages, such as questionable accuracy, biases and limitations, and scattered chronology. What makes this style effective is the readers ability to overcome most of these disadvantages, as well as the rarity of this method in the 18th century, and the suspense created.