Timelines in Emily Brontës «Wuthering Heights». Michael Weber
ten greatest ←16 | 17→novels in world literature and pays Emily Brontë unparalleled compliments, but at the same time he considers the novel “very clumsily constructed […] very imperfect” (1948, pp. 130, 132, 133). Unsurprisingly, he was severely rebuked (cf. Weir, p. 414). Robert Gleckner (1959, p. 330) is of the opinion that the novel does not report so much “an orderly progression in chronological time of separated, discontinuous events” but that the narrative structure conveys “a kind of all-pervading present, of which the past and the future are integral parts”, with past episodes appearing like flashbacks. Walter Kluge (1972, p. 1238) claims that the novel is not chronological, not “linear”. Carol Louise West (1981, pp. i–ii) also believes there to be “nonlinear representations of time” in Wuthering Heights, and that monthly “cyclical recurrences” represent the “ordering principle” of the novel, by which she probably means the plot. She considers the studies by Sanger and his successors to be “very technical” (which Sanger presciently feared, and which could explain their wide acceptance, though seemingly paradoxically at first), and the philosophically-oriented studies on temporality to be “very general”.8 West supposes that Emily Brontë is concerned with more than just “conventional distinctions between past, present, and future” (ibid., p. iv).
Despite this unsatisfactory state of affairs, this “chronological muddle”, the old chronologies with their “traditional dates” (Boyce, p. 100) have been, and continue to be, cited in literature on Wuthering Heights and used as a basis for textual interpretation. The dating is clearly regarded as accepted or tolerated, be it out of ignorance or because there is nothing better. In this respect, one can speak of a general consensus on the internal chronology of Wuthering Heights. The years 1801 and 1802 at the beginning of Chapters 1 and 32 respectively have never been scrutinised as to whether they are in fact chronologically relevant for the dating of the events in the novel, that is whether there is another explanation for the dates. Whether Wuthering Heights has a consistent and transparent chronological order and why Emily Brontë made a great mystery out of her time scheme – if there is one – continue to puzzle. Is Wuthering Heights a cryptic representation of reality in the spirit of E. Auerbach? Why did Emily Brontë hide her watch, as E. M. Forster (1927, p. 31) puts it in a witty but not entirely apposite metaphor (for what is really missing is a calendar, a rigorous timetable)? Why did Emily Brontë behave like a “Sibylline”, as Chitham phrases it? Why is “the whole texture [of Wuthering Heights] dense, posing questions and ←17 | 18→giving half-answers” (Chitham, pp. 5, 6)? Chitham (1998, p. 88) assumes that as a “nervous and retiring perfectionist, she would have been delighted to hear that thousands of readers 150 years after her death would still be enjoying her novel, but would have been reluctant to clarify what they found puzzling”. That may be so, but she would certainly not have been delighted by the accusation of defects in her craft. This study aims to solve this dilemma and put an end to dismissive criticism in Wuthering Heights-literature. It will be shown that the chronologically relevant fictional facts can be treated like real facts, i.e. the facts can be objectively quantified and determined as they are in the natural sciences.9 In such a way, mathematical rigor can be used to counteract the inherent stubbornness of scholarship with its need for harmony in the formation of facts, even if they are delusions (to draw upon the words of L. Fleck from his sociological and scientific theoretical study on the genesis and development of a scientific fact first published in 1935 (Fleck 1979)).
To this end, the next chapter will start by establishing the time structures of the novel. The three named absolute years already mentioned – the year 1778 (the year of Hareton Earnshaw’s birth, in Chapters 7 and 8), the year 1801 (at the beginning of Chapter 1) and the year 1802 (at the beginning of Chapter 32) – are taken as the basis. The assumption is that these named years are correct unless they are refuted by other data. As will be seen, all other relative time references can be mapped to these three named absolute years.10 It is crucial for the coherence of the time references and for the reconstruction of the chronology to determine what happened in a particular year. The result will depend ←18 | 19→on whether 1801 is considered to be the year of Mr. Lockwood’s first visit (which has always been assumed and which the text seems to suggest) or whether 1801 is seen as referring to something else, namely the beginning of Mr. Lockwood’s diary-like records.
The past events of Mr. Lockwood’s diary, therefore, must not only be brought into a coherent chronological order, they must also correlate with his reporting present, which he here and there weaves into his discourse. In other words, it must be kept in mind that some of Mr. Lockwood’s remarks may relate to the reporting present rather than to the reported past. This applies a fortiori to what Ellen Dean tells him in several sittings and what he notes down in portions some time later.
Chapter II goes on to discuss the various ways and means of deducing a chronology of the events from the data provided. After a brief overview of the novel’s narrative structure and narrators, as well as the dating methodology used, time schemes are determined from the data provided by Mr. Lockwood and Ellen Dean, and an analysis of the proposals found in Wuthering Heights-literature is provided. Starting with the premise that 1801 refers to the year that Mr. Lockwood writes his diary, rather than to the year of his first visit to Wuthering Heights, it becomes apparent that many time references can be squared with one another, above all the references which concern the central events of the novel. However, there are a few references that do not appear to fit. These are discussed in detail to demonstrate that they cannot be attributed to errors made by the author and to show that they make sense within the novel. These data, which at first glance seem incorrect, can be explained intra-fictionally, fitting into the framework of an overarching interpretation, which will be discussed in more detail in Chapter VII. Before this, Chapter III presents a tabular summary of the plot, depicting the entirely consistent chronology of the novel as it emerges from its time references, and is a result of the deliberations in Chapter II. Following this, the previous chronological theories are documented, and their shortcomings delineated. These can be resolved by the new proposal.
Chapter IV presents character-based chronologies. In the form of biographies of the individual characters, chronological details are reconstructed, which are linked to further observations, such as the fact that Mr. Heathcliff’s biographical dates show parallels with those of Lord Byron, which in turn provides insight into his character profile. Chapter V is devoted to the “ghost”, offering an interpretation of this phenomenon which eschews supernatural explanations. Chapter VI offers an overview of the family trees that have been developed so far. As will be shown, unresolved questions in this regard are directly connected with Ellen ←19 | 20→Dean’s narrative intentions. The critical genealogy proposed here takes these into account.
In Chapter VII, the findings from the previous chapters are brought together and consolidated into an interpretation which offers a succinct explanation for the remaining contradictions in the time schemes. This is largely based on an elucidation of Ellen Dean’s hidden intentions, which in turn Mr. Lockwood sees through in the course of his stay and which he goes along with in his writings. It becomes clear that it is possible to connect conclusively more time references than ever before and that an explanation can be found for the few remaining questionable time references, showing them to have been intentionally laid down as red herrings by Ellen Dean and Mr. Lockwood. Chapter VIII summarises the most important questions and answers once more, bringing them together at the end in a series of interpretational hypotheses on the text and answers to the practical questions which have long preoccupied the minds of readers of Wuthering Heights:
– who were Mr. Heathcliff’s parents?
– what does Mr. Heathcliff die of and when?
– what lies behind the ghost at the window of Catherine’s room at Wuthering Heights?
– was Mr. Heathcliff really the father of Linton Heathcliff, and Edgar Linton the father of Cathy?
←20 | 21→