Ellen Dean

One of the novel's two narrators, Nelly is loyal but conventional, and reads very little into events. In his introduction to Wuthering Heights, David Daiches remarks on the contrast between the tone of the narrative and the high drama of the goings-on of the story: "It is to what might be called the sublime deadpan of the telling that the extraordinary force of the novel can largely be attributed. . .. .At no point does Nelly throw up her hands and exclaim: 'For God's sake, what is going on here? What kind of people are they?'" For instance, after Heathcliff has spent the night in the Linton's garden bashing his head against a tree trunk, Nelly notices "several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hands and forehead were both stained; probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the...