Nelly Dean
Nelly Dean is the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange and the novel's most important internal narrator, the figure through whom the reader learns the entire history of the Earnshaws, the Lintons, and Heathcliff. She is not a detached chronicler but a participant who nursed Catherine Earnshaw as an infant, tended Heathcliff through a life-threatening bout of measles, raised Hareton Earnshaw from birth, and served as confidante, critic, and moral compass to nearly every major character. Her voice, filtered through Lockwood's diary, gives the story its intimate, gossipy texture and its moral weight; she is the one who pronounces the novel's final benediction on the union of Hareton and young Catherine, declaring that she will envy no one on their wedding day.
Identity and Background
Nelly was born into the Earnshaw household: her mother nursed Hindley Earnshaw, and Nelly herself grew up playing with the Earnshaw children and working about the farm. She was present when old Mr. Earnshaw returned from Liverpool with the dirty, ragged, black-haired child who would be named Heathcliff, and she was the one ordered to wash him and give him clean things. She admits that at first she joined Hindley in plaguing the newcomer, but her attitude softened when she nursed Heathcliff through a dangerous illness and the doctor praised her care. She remained at Wuthering Heights through the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw, Hindley's disastrous marriage to Frances, and the birth of Hareton, whom she raised as her own charge. When Catherine married Edgar Linton, Nelly was persuaded—against her inclination—to leave Wuthering Heights and accompany her to Thrushcross Grange, where she became housekeeper. She served Edgar Linton faithfully for eighteen years, and after his death she eventually returned to Wuthering Heights at Heathcliff's summons to care for the young Catherine.
Role as Narrator and Moral Arbiter
Nelly is the conduit for the entire backstory of Wuthering Heights. Lockwood, confined to Thrushcross Grange by illness, extracts the tale from her over several sittings, and she delivers it in a leisurely, detailed style that he finds perfectly suited to his taste. She is a self-aware storyteller who occasionally interrupts herself to remark on the lateness of the hour or to apologize for chattering on, but she is also a shrewd judge of character. She describes Heathcliff as a "cuckoo" who has cast out Hareton like an "unfledged dunnock"; she calls Joseph "the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible"; and she tells Catherine to her face that her reasons for loving Edgar Linton are shallow. She does not hesitate to scold Catherine for her selfishness or to warn her of the consequences of her choices. At the same time, she is capable of deep compassion: she weeps for Hindley when she hears of his death, and she feels the weight of her own complicity in the disasters that befall the families, confessing to Lockwood that on the night Catherine was imprisoned at Wuthering Heights she thought Heathcliff less guilty than herself.
Relationships and Conflicts
Nelly's closest bond is with the younger Catherine Linton, whom she helped raise after the death of the elder Catherine. She describes the girl as "the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house" and takes pride in her education and character. When Catherine begins a secret correspondence with Linton Heathcliff, Nelly discovers the letters, burns them, and forces Catherine to promise to stop. She later accompanies Catherine on her secret visits to Wuthering Heights, though she does so reluctantly and under protest. Her relationship with Heathcliff is complex: she has known him since childhood, nursed him through illness, and sometimes pities him, but she also fears and distrusts him. She refuses to help him gain access to the dying Catherine, and she openly calls him a villain when he strikes the younger Catherine. With Hareton, she feels a maternal tenderness that persists even after years of separation; when she sees him again after ten months, she cries out, "God bless thee, darling!" and tries to embrace him, though he does not recognize her and throws a stone at her bonnet.
Change and Ending
Nelly's own life changes course when Heathcliff, near the end of his life, summons her to Wuthering Heights to take charge of the household after Zillah leaves. She obeys joyfully, for Catherine's sake, and becomes the witness to the gradual reconciliation between Hareton and the young Catherine. She watches them study together, sees Hareton's "honest, warm, and intelligent nature" shake off the clouds of ignorance, and feels that both of them are in a measure her children. After Heathcliff's death, she remains at the Heights, and when Lockwood returns in 1802, she tells him that Hareton and Catherine are to be married on New Year's Day and that she will move with them to Thrushcross Grange. Her final words in the novel express her hope that the dead are at peace and her contentment with the future: "The crown of all my wishes will be the union of those two. I shall envy no one on their wedding day: there won't be a happier woman than myself in England!"
