The style of the novel
Emily Bronte's language is both spare and dense, which is why it's often compared to poetry. When you finish the novel, you have a firm sense of the bleak beauty of the moors, for instance, yet there are remarkably few descriptions of the landscape. What is there is immediately evocative. Her prose is also unusually rhythmic, often violent and abrupt. The verbs themselves are almost hysterical, until the final paragraph, in which the moths "flutter" and the soft winds "breathe." Her two sources of imagery are nature (animals, plants, fire, the land, the weather) and the supernatural (angel/devil, heaven/hell). These are evident in the words she uses and the mental pictures she evokes.
Point of view
There is no single point of view in this novel. The story is told by Lockwood, by Catherine, by Ellen Dean, by Heathcliff, by Isabella, by the younger Cathy, and by Zillah, the other housekeeper. Since the author never explicitly tells you what to think, you must evaluate the story in the same way that you evaluate each of the characters telling it. Lockwood and Ellen, who tell most of the story, appear more "normal" than most of the people they talk about (Lockwood is a conventional man about town, despite his brief sojourn to Yorkshire, and Ellen displays a practical, homespun wisdom), but you can't overlook their biases. Neither of them can appreciate the passion between Heathcliff and Catherine. You as a reader, can, however. You can see much more than any single character can tell you. Evaluating what each character says helps to draw you into the book.
Form and structure
Part of what makes Wuthering Heights such an extraordinary novel is its complicated narrative structure. Although telling a story from different, limited points of view has become common in this century, when Emily Bronte was writing, most novels featured an omniscient narrator--someone (often, but not always the author) who was not a character in the book, but who could address the reader, comment on the action, and describe the thoughts and feelings of any of the people in the story. Wuthering Heights broke the mold; it is told solely by characters in the book, most notably Mr. Lockwood and Ellen Dean, although portions of Ellen's narrative include stories told to her by others. The narrative itself consists of stories-within-stories-within-stories. Take a look, for instance, at Joseph's description of the dissipation at Wuthering Heights after Heathcliff's return. It is quoted in Ellen's warning to Isabella against Heathcliff, which is in her story to Lockwood, which is in Lockwood's story to you. Early readers were put off by this, seeing it as unnecessarily complicated and confusing; but most readers today view it as one of the novel's great strengths. This book is full of doubles. There are two generations, each occupying half the chapters. There are two households, each with distinctive qualities. And the actions revolve around pairs of children (Heathcliff and Cathy, the younger Cathy and Linton, the younger Cathy and Hareton).
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Creada: 22/02/2000 Última Actualización: 07/03/2000