Timelines in Emily Brontës «Wuthering Heights». Michael Weber
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 rather than 1801, and that 1801 is the year in which he begins his report. This can be done by differentiating between the real and the historic present through the analysis of the frequent tense changes in the text. Or, conversely argued, the tense changes, especially the use of the present and the present perfect, cannot be used to prove that Mr. Lockwood makes his first two visits to Wuthering Heights in 1801, as has been claimed. Again, the unusual and elaborately constructed opening sentence of the novel and the tense switching play a special role here. This striking opening inevitably attracts the attention of the reader since particular relevance is usually assigned to the beginning of a novel. The paragraph boasts tense changes between the present, the future, the simple past, and includes a preposed present perfect.8
The present tense with Mr. Lockwood’s enthusiasm for Mr. Heathcliff and the country, and the “just” with the present perfect tense, only suggest that the report is contemporaneous with the time of his visit. The present is the historic present, it cannot be the real present, which means it refers to the time of the reported I, not to the present of the reporting I. With the help of the tense change, Mr. Lockwood gives the impression that he is reporting close to the events, i.e. at one day’s remove each time or by an even shorter interval, like any regular diarist. For this reason, in addition to tense changes, he repeatedly uses time adverbs like “yesterday” and “tomorrow”, or synonymous terms, in his later records. For example, at the beginning of Chapter 2, he begins the description of his second visit to Wuthering Heights with the following words: “Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold” (WH, 8). If this time reference were in fact real and not historical (i.e. if it referred to the present of the reporting I and not to the past experiences of the reported I), he would have had to write at least “the day before yesterday” instead of “yesterday” since he himself says that he was able to write his diary on the day after his second visit but not the night following it. At the earliest, he could have started his records two days after the visit. With the report being so precise, such a subtle discrepancy would be an alarm signal that something is not right ←35 | 36→with the figures of the hypothetical time scheme. At the beginning of Chapter 32, there is a further tense change that is dangerous for chronologists: the past simple with the time expression “[t];his September”. The introductions to Chapters 1 and 32 are particularly confusing, not only because of the preceding dates 1801 and 1802, but also because of the contradictory combination of the past simple with the temporal adverbials “just” and “[t]his September”. Since the past rather than the present is spoken of after the dates, the adverbials and the two named years lead to misconceptions when temporally determining the narrative perspective, owing to the deictic nature of the two time expressions.
In four other passages in Mr. Lockwood’s report, the present tense is used in several tense changes, which can lead to chronological errors, as with the opening sentence. To avoid this, a distinction must again be made between the real and the historic present by taking the reporting situation into account. Shortly before Ellen Dean begins her story, Mr. Lockwood reports:
The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire; my head felt hot, and the rest of me chill: moreover I was excited, almost to a pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain. This caused me to feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious effects from the incidents of to-day and yesterday. She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work […]. (WH, 41)
The “to-day and yesterday” can unequivocally only be referring to the day of Mr. Lockwood’s return from Wuthering Heights and the day before that, in November 1800, whereas the “as I am still” makes no sense for the day of the return. On the day of his return, he would have simply