Timelines in Emily Brontës «Wuthering Heights». Michael Weber
←29 | 30→deeper, chronological importance to them. He writes (ibid., p. 13) in conspicuous agreement with Ort: “Does Lockwood anticipate, on the basis of this first visit, trouble from the ‘solitary neighbour’ […]?” However, this cannot be true: the first visit does not go smoothly, but there is no reason to believe that trouble is imminent. Had this been the case, Mr. Lockwood would hardly have been so quick to repeat his visit to Wuthering Heights of his own accord.
There is a second passage in Mr. Lockwood’s report which proves that he is reporting retrospectively and where he even admits to it, though with misleading information about the circumstances. The passage is also an opening sentence, this time to the original second volume of the novel, Chapter 15:
Another week over – and I am so many days nearer health, and spring! I have now heard all my neighbour’s history […] I’ll continue it in her own words […]. (WH, 191)
Ellen Dean has arrived at the point in her story where she is describing Cathy’s wretchedness at Wuthering Heights and her own helplessness. Just like in the opening sentence of the novel, Mr. Lockwood’s formulation makes it appear as if he is reporting from the perspective of December when he hears the end of the story; he seems here to be communicating from the perspective of the experiencing or reporting I: “I have now heard […]”. Only comparing this with the final sentence of Chapter 30 when Mr. Lockwood returns to the end of Ellen Dean’s story does it become apparent that the previous sentence (“Another week over – and I am so many days nearer health, and spring!”) means that he is reporting from the perspective of the second week of January, which he actually names. This indicates the change from the reported to the reporting I and thus shows the retrospective character of the diary in rare clarity: “[…] and, though it be only the second week in January […]” (WH, 367). This will be discussed in more detail at the end of the next section in connection with Mr. Lockwood’s illness.
Mr. Lockwood gives the impression in a few other places that he is reporting in hindsight. This is down to the particular numbers he uses (such as the number twenty) and the seemingly unnecessary facts (such as the properties of peat), which readers can recognise as allusions to corresponding passages in Ellen Dean’s story long after they have been mentioned. Since their detection assumes that the content of Ellen Dean’s story is known and that her narrative strategy is clear, the allusions will be discussed later in Chapter VII, The Chronology as Practical Narratology, where it will also be explained why Emily Brontë needed to create Mr. Lockwood and have him report retrospectively.
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Regarding Mr. Lockwood’s illness after his second visit to Wuthering Heights, it can be deduced from the text that he could not have started his diary while he was ill. His remarks make it clear that he did not put anything down on paper the night immediately after he returned to Wuthering Heights after his second visit:
At this point of the housekeeper’s story, she chanced to glance towards the time-piece over the chimney; and was in amazement on seeing the minute-hand measure half-past one. She would not hear of staying a second longer: in truth, I felt rather disposed to defer the sequel of her narrative myself. And now that she is vanished to her rest, and I have meditated for another hour or two, I shall summon courage to go, also, in spite of aching laziness of head and limbs. (WH, 109)
The question arises as to what causes Mr. Lockwood to brood for almost two hours. It cannot be anything other than Ellen Dean’s strange behaviour at the beginning of her story and the causes of this behaviour, i.e. the events preceding Catherine Earnshaw’s wedding. There is reason to believe that Mr. Lockwood already sees through Ellen Dean and her secretiveness and is thinking about how he will handle her.
In his own words, after this night Mr. Lockwood is too ill to undertake anything or to get anything done for four weeks (WH, 109). After these four weeks, he is still “too weak to read” (WH, 110) – and therefore to write. For him, it is “quite an easy interval” when Mr. Heathcliff pays him a visit and sits “at [his] bedside a good hour” at the end of his fourth week of illness. When this takes place can be calculated, as shown below, though finding a method of calculation for this chronologically extremely important date is difficult and is a prime example of Emily Brontë’s camouflage.
About seven days before the end of Mr. Lockwood’s fourth week of illness, Mr. Heathcliff sends him “a brace of grouse – the last of the season” (WH, 110). Sanger (1926, p. 13) states that, according to the Game Act of 1831, grouse could not be shot after 10 December. This law did not yet exist in the fictional year of 1800. From this, and from the fact that Ellen Dean sings a Danish song to Hareton in 1779 even though the song was first made known in England in a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott not published until 1810, it has been concluded 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