EN
203 Guy Tiphane
Prof. A. Davaran March 13, 2002
Language, Culture and Class in Wuthering Heights
In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, the narrator Mr. Lockwood comes to stay in the countryside in search of social isolation but finds interest in the strange story of the people of Wuthering Heights. Through his narration and the words he reports from the narration of Mrs. Dean, we witness a powerful account of relationships often based on language and intellectual development. Language, books, and the availability of education are central to the inner and outer struggles in the novel.
Mr. Lockwood himself gets involved with the people of Wuthering Heights by coming to rent Thrushcross Grange from Heathcliff, whom he finds interesting at first as a “man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than” himself (25[1]). Despite the inhospitable treatment Lockwood receives and is bound to receive again, he volunteers a second visit after finding Heathcliff “very intelligent on the topics we touched” (29). Mr. Lockwood enjoys the company of learned men and abhors that of ignorant servants, and considers women on their superficial aspects and what man should own their destiny. He will find a different world at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, after he reads the fragment of Catherine and Heathcliff’s story handwritten in one of Catherine’s books.
Mrs. Dean, a servant who will become the second narrator of the story, shows qualities beyond Lockwood’s classic expectations. First a servant “taken as a fixture along with the house” (29), then an instrument of “a regular gossip” (48), Mrs. Dean will become his friend once he has established that she can speak well: “Excepting a few provincialisms of slight consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to consider as peculiar to your class.” (71) As a matter of fact, she claims to have read all the books in the library, except for those in Greek, Latin and French! The servant-erudite also gets the respect of most of the other characters in the novel, including Heathcliff who will have to resort to locking her up in order for her not to interfere with his designs (“To the devil with your clamour! I don’t want you to speak! – 235). Once readmitted to Wuthering Heights, her influence on young Catherine will facilitate the acceptance and education of Hareton, much to the dismay of old Joseph who then becomes the most ignorant in the house.
Joseph is another servant who comes out of the ordinary, an elderly man whose role seems to be that of a chorus bearing religious and folkloristic judgment on the events. Joseph’s first words to Lockwood are “the Lord help us” (25) perhaps as if Lockwood’s arrival could announce the possibility of change, for the better or worse we do not know. Joseph’s interactions are pronounced with a thick Yorkshire accent, sometimes a challenge to the reader, instrumental along with his old age in representing him as the bearer of tradition. He rarely seems to consider women as other than witches if they dare to do anything but bear children and listen to their husbands. When Isabella moves to Wuthering Heights, Joseph cannot understand her language (“Hah can Aw tell whet ye say?” – 131) and is upset at having a mistress in addition to the dual mastership of Hindley and Heathcliff. His exclusive readings are of the religious scriptures, and his vocation, according to Mrs. Dean, is “to be where he had plenty of wickedness to reprove” (74). His reproving is especially strong on Catherine and Heathcliff as children and he is faithful to Hindley and previously to his father whom he influenced against the children. Joseph finds relief at the death of Heathcliff whom he believes is possessed by the devil (“Th’ divil’s harried off his soul” – 283).
At the center of the story is Heathcliff’s desire to seek revenge for having been contemptuously kept at a low level of society by Hindley and the Lintons, consequently losing Catherine to Edgar. Catherine rejects Heathcliff for a matter of social class, and she will not help him out of Hindley’s degradation. Heathcliff, seeing that he will loose her if he does not improve, flees Wuthering Heights to try his fortune elsewhere. We do not know what he did, but he became a gentleman with the classic attributes of better language and money, only to find that Catherine did not wait for his return. This transformation, this refusal to remain crushed at a low level of education, will be reproduced again with Hareton with the single difference that Hareton will never realize that Heathcliff had been the one to make sure he would grow up in intellectual poverty. In both cases, however, it is the prospect of being closer to one of the Catherines that motivates the men to improve. In both cases, they have to fight against an established winner, one who has better language and education, as well as showing themselves worthy of a Catherine. Both Catherines easily let themselves into marriage with weaker but educated characters of a higher social status.
The two heirs Hindley Earnshaw and Edgar Linton meet different fates, which could be related to each one’s educational and social level. Hindley comes back from college with a wife but not any smarter than before. He first triumphs as the master of Wuthering Heights, but loses his senses after his wife dies, and is practically defenseless when Heathcliff returns. Edgar, on the other hand, does not need to crush anyone and finds solace in the library when his loved one passes away. His policy of keeping away from Wuthering Heights saves him and his family until his death when the young Catherine falls prisoner to Heathcliff.
Hareton, the neglected child of Hindley, does not get any education other than from Joseph and other servants, giving him that “frightful Yorkshire pronunciation” which Linton delights in deriding (194). Joseph gives him some awareness of his lineage and Hareton learns, on his own, how to read his ancestor’s namesake, giving him hints that he could move up and own Wuthering Heights. It is only once young Catherine is captive, and Mrs. Dean her counsel, that she accepts the task of teaching Hareton how to read, write, and pronounce. The purposeful act brings the story to its conclusion, where education once again wins against degradation and ignorance.
In Wuthering Heights, the borders of birthright are challenged by the desire to love and to be loved. Books, education, and world experience give people the means to cross those borders beyond expectations and to emerge as hopeful and peaceful human beings.