Timelines in Emily Brontës «Wuthering Heights». Michael Weber

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СКАЧАТЬ that historical events cannot be used for the dating of the novel, and that therefore it is not possible to get to grips with the time scheme by using historical critical methods (cf. Ewbank 1976, p. 487). This is certainly correct as far as the year is concerned but not when it comes to the day and the month. Wuthering Heights has its own inner historicity, as will be shown by the use of Byron’s biographical dates for those of Mr. Heathcliff (cf. Chap. IV, Mr. Heathcliff’s biography). In this respect, it would not be correct to speak of external errors made ←31 | 32→by Emily Brontë, that is to say, discrepancies between what is written in the novel and actual real-life circumstances.⁵ Anyway, according to Sanger, Mr. Lockwood receives the famous Scottish game bird shortly before, on or shortly after 10 December. This temporal vagueness comes as a surprise. How is it that Mr. Lockwood can remember precisely when Mr. Heathcliff visits him but only imprecisely when Mr. Heathcliff sends him some of the coveted grouse, which was just a few days before the visit he mentions in the same breath? Why does he not simply write “a few days ago”, if he believes that he received the present fewer than seven days before the visit, or “more than a week ago” in the opposite case? Emily Brontë will once more use the chronologically risky, exegetically somewhat unfair “about” at another chronologically very important place, at the birth of Cathy, when she has Ellen Dean say that she was born at “about twelve o’ clock” (WH, 202). Much later, she has Ellen Dean specify the date of birth (as will be shown in Catherine Linton’s biography in Chapter IV) – in the case of the grouse, this clarification fails to materialise. One must accept the obviously intentional, narratively tactical, temporal vagueness. Chronologically, it is irrelevant anyway – it makes no difference whether Mr. Lockwood feels a little better a day earlier or later.

      The necessity for scientific accuracy makes it important to factor in the temporally indefinite preposition “about” in all chronological deliberations that follow. Since that would be stylistically unsatisfactory and laborious, and since it also involves the danger that it could be mistakenly assumed that the “about” means that the date varies considerably or that even the month and year of the date in question are uncertain, the “about” will be tacitly omitted from the dates that can be deduced from 10 December. From the date 10 December and the “seven days”, it follows mathematically that on 17 December the fourth week of Mr. Lockwood’s illness comes to an end and that on this day he asks Ellen Dean “to finish her tale” (WH, 110). Even the time of day when Ellen Dean continues with her story can be determined: namely, in the morning, after Mr. Heathcliff’s visit. This is evident from her question as to whether Mr. Lockwood is “feeling better this morning” (WH, 111). Moreover, the date of 10 December proves, if one counts back on the timeline, that Ellen Dean begins the first part of her story on 18 November (that is three weeks and one day before 10 December)⁶ and that Mr. Lockwood visits Wuthering Heights for the first time on 16 November.

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      On the morning of 17 December 1800, Ellen Dean talks for several hours about the events between March 1782 and March 1783 until she is interrupted by the visit of the doctor. She informs Mr. Lockwood that the rest of her story “will serve to wile away another morning” (WH, 191). The fact that Ellen Dean as housekeeper (as she calls herself, though more in the spirit of lady of the house) wants to have her story finished by Christmas by the very latest and the fact that she expects Mr. Lockwood to want the same (WH, 109) is as understandable as Mr. Lockwood’s silence, as a professed unsociable “misanthropist”, with regard to Christmas: he makes no mention of Christmas at all in his report. It is not clear from the text when and how long Ellen Dean continues her story after that and at what intervals. The rest of the story comprises about 176 pages (from the beginning of Chapter 15 until the end of Chapter 30). Assuming Ellen Dean talks for about two hours a day, it can be deduced from the amount of text that she manages the content over a period of one week. This fits with Mr. Lockwood’s remark at the beginning of Chapter 15 that Ellen Dean has told him “all [his] neighbour’s history, at different sittings” and that “[a];nother week [is] over”, which means that she in fact comes to the end of her story on 24 December 1800 (seventeen plus seven):

      Another week over – and I am so many days nearer health, and spring! I have now heard all my neighbour’s history, at different sittings […]. I’ll continue it in her own words, only a little condensed. She is, on the whole, a very fair narrator, and I don’t think I could improve her style. (WH, 191)

      The meaning of these sentences with three different time expressions in the first sentence alone, and with their multiple tenses and various time references, is as difficult to understand as that of the opening sentence of the novel, bringing with it considerable interpretational risks. This is not surprising since Chapter 15 is the original start to the second volume of the novel. Just as he does at the very start of Chapter 1, Mr. Lockwood gives the impression that he is reporting almost contemporaneously with the events (that therefore his time expressions relate to the time of the action rather than to the time of his writing the report), in this case just after 17 December. In the end, he continues his report exactly where he left off on 17 December, that is in March 1783 of the story. However, investigative readers are puzzled that one week after 17 December he is talking about being so many days nearer to spring. Who talks about spring at Christmas? Even more striking is the fact that at the end of Chapter 30 when he explicitly returns to the narrative again, Mr. Lockwood writes:

      Thus ended Mrs. Dean’s story. Notwithstanding the doctor’s prophecy, I am rapidly recovering strength; and, though it be only the second week in January, I propose getting ←33 | 34→out on horseback in a day or two, and riding over to Wuthering Heights […]. I would not pass another winter here for much. (WH, 367)

      The “second week in January” does not fit at all with a “week after 17 December”, that is with 24 December 1800. Reading both quotes (176 pages apart) carefully and comparing them chronologically with each other, the cause of the confusion becomes clear: the phrase “[a];nother week over” in the first quote, without any verb to indicate the tense, does not have to be a reference to the duration of Ellen Dean’s story, but is in fact much more likely to be referring to the second week of January and Mr. Lockwood’s morale at that time. Mr. Lockwood (to stay within fictional reality) has learned something about narrative technique from Ellen Dean – as already suggested by his use of “about”, and as a few other instances will confirm – and also how to induce the drawing of wrong conclusions by transference (or association), as in this case. The period of one week is not in itself wrong. It is correct for both December and the following January. Regarding the end of Ellen Dean’s story, it is fair to say that it probably falls at Christmas. Ellen Dean cannot possibly continue telling her story until the second week of January, as the last quote may suggest. The link between the narrative and Mr. Lockwood’s health in January 1801 has no chronological significance. The time expression “the second week in January” in connection with the present continuous (“I am rapidly recovering”) proves only that Mr. Lockwood cannot have started his report until January at the earliest for health reasons, probably starting it after his third visit to Mr. Heathcliff.

      Furthermore, it is also mnestically plausible that, from the beginning of January 1801, Mr. Lockwood notes what Ellen Dean had told him earlier in November and December 1800. He could hardly have kept the vast and temporally complicated material in his head for longer than seven weeks. The fact that he is able to do this at all is remarkable, if not inconceivable.⁷

      This aspect, along with other psychological considerations, has played an important role in the assumption that Mr. Lockwood is an unreliable narrator. This alleged characteristic of Mr. Lockwood will be discussed in more detail ←34 | 35→in the section ‘The Time Scheme of Ellen Dean’s Story’ in this chapter and in Chapter VII, The Chronology as Practical Narratology.

Mr. Lockwood the contemporary witness

      It can be proved grammatically that, contrary to first appearances, Mr. Lockwood’s first two visits to Wuthering Heights are in 1800 СКАЧАТЬ