1778

The year 1778 functions as a crucial temporal pivot in Nelly Dean's retrospective narrative, the point at which she shifts from recounting the first generation's story to chronicling the second generation's fate. It is the summer in which Hareton Earnshaw, the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, is born, and it marks the beginning of the long decline that will culminate in the deaths of Frances and Hindley Earnshaw, and the eventual rise of Heathcliff as master of Wuthering Heights. The year also provides the chronological foundation for the childhood and young adulthood of Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw, whose eventual reconciliation forms the novel's concluding hope.

Birth of Hareton Earnshaw and the Death of Frances

On a fine June morning in 1778, Nelly Dean's "first bonny little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock" is born. The birth is announced by a breathless girl who reports that the doctor has declared Frances Earnshaw to be in a consumption and that she will not survive the winter. Hindley Earnshaw, however, refuses to accept the prognosis, insisting that his wife is perfectly well and that the doctor's medicines are useless. Despite his denial, Frances dies shortly after, leaving the infant Hareton entirely in Nelly's care. This event sets in motion Hindley's descent into reckless dissipation, as he gives himself up to drink and gambling, and it creates the conditions for Heathcliff's eventual revenge.

Hindley's Descent and Heathcliff's Revenge

In the wake of Frances's death, Hindley Earnshaw grows desperate and abandons himself to a life of dissipation, cursing and defying God and man. His treatment of Heathcliff becomes so brutal that it seems calculated to "make a fiend of a saint." Heathcliff, in turn, delights in witnessing Hindley's self-destruction and becomes daily more notable for his savage sullenness and ferocity. The curate stops calling, and no decent person comes near the house, except for Edgar Linton's visits to Catherine Earnshaw. This period of degradation is the soil in which Heathcliff's long-nurtured plan of revenge takes root, and it is the context for his famous declaration that he will "settle how I shall pay Hindley back."

Childhood of Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw

The year 1778 also marks the beginning of the childhood of the second generation. Catherine Linton, born in 1784, is not yet alive, but the events of this year shape the world into which she will be born. Hareton Earnshaw, born in 1778, grows up under the neglectful and abusive care of his father, and later under the deliberate degradation imposed by Heathcliff. Nelly Dean, who nurses Hareton from infancy, later reflects on how he has been "cast out like an unfledged dunnock" and how he is the only one in the parish who does not guess how he has been cheated. The year 1778 thus establishes the temporal distance between the first generation's tragedy and the second generation's potential for redemption.

Narrative Significance

Nelly Dean explicitly marks the transition to the year 1778 as a deliberate choice in her storytelling, telling Lockwood that instead of leaping over three years, she will "be content to pass to the next summer—the summer of 1778, that is nearly twenty-three years ago." This temporal marker allows her to bridge the gap between the early history of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw and the later story of their children and heirs. The year 1778 is thus not merely a date but a structural device that organizes the novel's complex chronology, grounding the reader in the passage of time and the inexorable unfolding of consequences.