Narrative Functions Of Nelly Dean In Wuthering Heights

Since the publication of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, many critics have commented on its unique narrative style. Interestingly enough, both the favorable and unfavorable comments on it unanimously derive from the noted complexity of its narrative structure. And the intentionality and effect of the author's use of dual narrators, Lockwood and Nelly Dean, have been the focus of many studies. It is proposed, and further maintained by the present study that Nelly Dean is a far more significant narrator who carries out the ideological intrusion, which is otherwise exercised by an authorial narrator in many other novels.This paper intends to explore the functions of Nelly Dean as a narrator and the effect this narrative art yields on the style of the novel and on the reader. The present thesis mainly adopts as the conceptual framework the narratological theory of the French narratologist, G. Genette, whose idea about the five functions of the narrator in fiction will illuminate my current study.In my thesis, I first discuss the relevant narratological concepts such as the 'narrative' and the 'narrative act', and crucially, the 'narrator'. And then Genette's theory of the five functions of the narrator is applied to analyze the narrative functions of Nelly Dean in the novel. It is also suggested by the present study that she performs the narrative, directing, communicative, testimonial and ideological functions, which contribute to the complexity of the narrative style of the novel. Also discussed in the thesis is the interplay between the narrative mode and its effect upon the reader. Finally, it is proposed that as a result of the narrative functions of Nelly Dean, the novel requires the reader's effort to (re)construct the text and the text value.