What Is The Significance of Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean?

Mr. Lockwood is the guest of Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights and his stay is quite disastrous. He is repeatedly attacked by dogs and treated roughly by Heathcliff and others. He seems like a foil to Heathcliff as he is the polite, snooty man in contrast to Heathcliff’s bestial and bizarre appearance and behavior. Lockwood seems more like a British everyman whereas Heathcliff is more like Emily Bronte’s brother, Branwell, and other sorts of troubled anti-heroes found in Bronte novels.

Lockwood is a guest in a house that appears haunted, though it just may be his delusions. Whatever the case may be, he was given a hectoring religious lecture by Joseph and injured himself quite badly during a nightmare (or ghost visitation?) that was so terrifying he was screaming out in fright and breaking windows. The damage from the broken windows was sufficient to soak his bedclothes in blood (16) and all Lockwood gets for his trouble is a bunch of cursing from Heathcliff.

Lockwood was tricked by Zillah into going into that room and when he isn’t being tricked by servants, he is being fed lurid and potentially false stories about Heathcliff and others by Nelly Dean. Lockwood, having gotten so sick that he remained ill for a month, takes in the story by Nelly Dean who seems similarly abused by Heathcliff and others. Nelly serves as a chance for Lockwood to learn how terrible Heathcliff lived in the past which are things he might not have learned otherwise. He learned of Catherine’s death and Heathcliff’s marriage to Isabella, something Heathcliff did to punish Edgar Linton. Since he could not get to Edgar, he abuses Isabella along with Joseph, Hareton and Hindley.

Nelly is the sole way Lockwood learns of the love triangle of Heathcliff/Edgar/Catherine and learns how Nelly took care of Hareton and Catherine (2?),
the child Catherine had. Nelly tried to get Catherine to marry Heathcliff (59) yet she failed to pull it off, which makes the narration of the tragedies in the story to Lockwood more personal. How much of what Nelly Dean says is truthful is debatable and her stories to Lockwood seem to make for a two-fold and untrustworthy “unreliable narrator” to the story, which is then read by people like us in the book.

This keeps the story mysterious but distant from the reader. I find it all to be confusing as to what is occurring and who is telling the truth or withholding the truth, which may have been a result that Emily Bronte was going for in Wuthering Heights.