Structure and Narrative in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights

Abstract

<p>Wuthering Heights has been a centre of argument for literary critics for over one hundred and thirty years. The following discussion offers insights into the way Emily Brontë may have conceived the novel's structure on the basis of an Elizabethan dramatic design -- Shakespeare's tragedies being generally the model. At the same time, the narrative -- being an unusual feature of the book as far as it concerns the mid-nineteenth century -- looks forward to the kind of techniques Joseph Conrad was later to use. Together, the historical design of the novel's structure and its then futuristic narrative method, produce a unique work of genius -- one reason, perhaps, why Wuthering Heights in 1980 still attracts attention from readers and critics alike.</p>