Lockwoods role

[lil_mrs]

Hi, i have an essay style question for ALevel Language & Literature. The question is: 'Explain and Explore Lockwoods role in Wuthering Heights in the first five chapters'.

So far, i have explained what type of person Lockwood is. However, I cannot exactly work out his role! Can anyone help?

[lissyl78]

Hi, I have never studied Wuthering Heights so this is just coming from a literature student who has only read the book!

I would say that the role of Lockwood begins as he provides our introduction to Wuthering Heights (the building) and Heathcliff as they are at the present time - post-Cathy. We get to see the character of Heathcliff through Lockwood, and I think the first impression that Heathcliff and family make on Lockwood are an important point to discuss in your essay. I think his main role though is the same as ours essentially, the listener of a story. Through his questions to Nelly Dean, we hear the story of Heathcliff and Cathy.

Sorry I can't give more detailed analysis - like I said, I never studied the play. Hopefully, there are a couple of points to start you off. Good luck! x

[mycatis]

One reason Lockwood exists is to provide a contrast between a "civilised, educated gentleman" and the passionate violent story that is being told. He provides a sort of rational, outsider point of view, which sems to make the story, characters and even the strong dialect even more strange and powerful.
Does this help at all? It's just my opinion, I've chosen Wuthering Heights as my specialist study for my English Higher this year.

[mimififi]

It has been many years since I 'did' wurthering Heights, tho it is my favourite.

One very basic, and it is basic, role of Lockwood is simply to provide a forum for Nelly to tell her story. An easy way to work out your own ideas is to imagine the story without lockwood. Go through your text and draw a square bracket down the side of all scenes that is Nelly telling the story to Lockwood. You will get fed up because it will start off every page.

He is almost the role of the reader. we are almost synonymous with him. he asks Nelly our questions and of course he speaks our dialect. (dialect is very important in this book and is wrapped up with Mycatis' point about refined/rugged) It is interesting to note that Nelly's narrative to Lockwood is not written in dialect, despite her being in Yorkshire for so long. (that is a bit off subject though.)

Lockwood also provides a protagonist for key characters and key points. he is the cause of Healthcliffes poor behaviour in the first scene with the dogs, he is the catalyst also for the ghost at the window (It's me cathy, I've been a waif for twenty years (or words to the effect of, without trying to sound too Kate Bush) Without Lockwood staying in the closet, Cathy would not have visited and we would not have seen the vulnerable side of Heathcliff.

[mimififi]

TO go back to Mycatos point also, Lockwood increases some of the gothicism of the novel too. By playing the refined, city gent, he is highlighting the rugged nature of the heights from the lanscape to the people. For the reader it is almost as if we go back in time every time we visit the hieghts despite the fact that at the beginning of the story, it is real time, we don't actually go back till the 2nd? chapter. This provides a good contrast also with the end of the book after heathcliffes death (presumably you have read the whole thing) when the heights seems so much brighter and begin, imo to get a bit twee (bronte, bless her!) You may remember the first time Lockwood/we meet Healthcliff junior, he is hanging some puppies at the barn door. The horror of the setting in a general way is highlighted by Lockwoods shock. he is us and we are him.

[mimififi]

Lockwood is so far removed from the setting of the hieghts that he almost can not be considered part of the cast. He is in everyway and outsider, and observer and he doesn't really propel the story in any way, not in the same way as Hethcliff (oh, i Iove that man!) does, a catalyst for all events, nothing really happens unless Heathcliff is around. He purely provides an audience and a sounding board for Nelly to dictate too. Lockwood does give us some insight however to things such as the harsh lanscape (that scene where he starts walking and gets stuck and has to be rescued), and his preference to the grange than to the heights, Lockwood is our eyes, we see things how he does because we wood, it's kind of circular.

One thing, in closing, that I do find very interesting, is Lockwoods failure to charm cathy junior at the heights. He says (at the end. which is really the beginning, when he begins to tell some of the story in the first person narrative) that there was a girl at the hieghts who would have been "pretty had it not been for the fact that she was so sullen". He obviously views himself as lovely to everyone, and yet, there is this cosm at the hieghts that he is not a part of and unable to break into. He is almost a seperate thread plot. Lockwood/the rest, are almost two distinguishable stories. One of now, and one of then.

[mimififi]

Just a word to the wise also, this is only imHo, and may not be Ho of your tutor, exam board of yourself. There are perhaps many who disagree, so I may not be 'right' in that sense.

But, thank you for posting such a cool question, I love this novel and have read and reread many times. I really enjoyed posting. Good luck with your writing and your course.

I have to go to bed now and perhaps preceed with a hot bath and quick skim read of my favourite scene of the heights: Cathy's deathbed. "....and so forcefully had he held her, that upon his release I distinctly saw 4 blue marks in her skin...." Paraphrased. Wow, what great writing!

[lil_mrs]

WOW! Thanks everyone SO much! I really appreciate this : ) xx