Non Linear Structure : Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights can be seen as a Gothic literary text as its Non-linear structure is deliberately used by Emily Bronte to confuse the reader. Perplexity can be seen as gothic as it disrupts order, and when order is not in place it can lead into catastrophic events which highlights the plot of the novel.

Paul Norgate would also agree the novel told in retrospective then back into where the reader left of at the beginning of the novel, is intended as ‘this movement should itself be seen as a part of the story (…) more accurately, of the way we make sense of the story’. If the frame of the novel was in chronological order it would be easy for us reader to ‘tumble us more quickly into the ‘main’ plot’ which wouldn’t make a confounded impact to how it’s told in a pastiche form but unfortunately not ‘ be prepared to bother with it at all’.

Lockwood adds to the Non –linear structure by changing narrative and disrupting the order of the story. Volume one of ‘Wuthering Heights’, Lockwood represents the reader(s) by being naïve to the events taken place within Wuthering Heights. By volume two Lockwood is seen into the penetralium, where us readers can make a judgement of the bewildered environment as a whole. Knowing this, we can conclude that Lockwood is a valuable character as well as Nelly, even though they might not be merely diegetic, without their dual narration we wouldn’t be able to ‘gain access to the significance, of what’s going on’.