Wuthering Heights language check

Walt Whitman

Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
Italian
Home Country
Italy
Current Location
Italy
Since I’ve been collecting critical books, papers, essays, websites and blogs which are concerned with Wuthering Heights, it often happens that the people who write or post in some sites and blogs don’t say what their nationality is. In this case I can’t always be sure if their English is idiomatic and grammatical, so I need the help of UE members. Could you please help me check the English used by Craig Brown, the owner of the site cited in the source? I feel it’s good. Could he be a native speaker of English?

Source: Craig Brown — Just Great DataBase
(1) The story starts in the cold winter of 1801 when the narrator named Lockwood decides to rent a manor with a poetic name Thrushcross Grange. The manor stands aside the major road in the middle of the moors and abandoned fields. The man who owns the manor, Heathcliff, lives nearby, in the mansion called Wuthering Heights. Lockwood decides to visit his landlord once and from there on the real story starts.
The inhabitants of the house include several people and Heathcliff himself, an old grumpy man who isn’t even pretending to be pleasant with the guest. He treats him with all due respect but without any warmth. Another thing that seems strange to Lockwood is that the owner of Wuthering Heights has all the manners of a gentleman, but looks like a Gypsy man and all his manor seems more a farmhouse than a home of an aristocrat.

(2) Thirty years ago, Mr. Earnshaw, who lived in Wuthering Heights and owned the manor, took a trip to Liverpool. He returned from there with a little orphan child who seemed to be Gypsy by origin. Mr. Earnshaw named him Heathcliff and raised him as his own son along with his other two children, Catherine and Hindley. Hindley and Heathcliff didn’t get along well, Hindley was more reserved, while the orphan didn’t have any manners, was rough, straight and quick to anger. But Catherine was much more open-minded to him and soon she and Heathcliff became friends. They played adventurous games on the moors much to her brother’s displeasure and had a happy childhood.

Please, let me know if the extracts are too long.

Thank you
WW
 
Please provide a link to the page that text appears on. I can't find it on that database you named.
 
Here is the link, emsr2d2.

But you've found him, the Craig Brown I was looking for. So thank you very much.
Do you think the extracts I've posted are too long?
 
With a name like Craig Brown, you can be very confident that he's a native speaker.
 
This time I don’t know who the blog belongs to. Unfortunately, no info in the “About” section. It seems to me that the author’s English is very good.

Source: Wicked Ends: Villainy in the Gothic
link:
wickedends.wordpress.com/blog/

Two extracts from the plot:

Childhood
Heathcliff arrives at the Earnshaw’s doorstep with Mr. Earnshaw having recovered him from parts unknown and for uncertain reasons. Catherine and Hindley take no great joy in this dark arrival at first, but Catherine, at least, soon takes to him. Brontë characterizes their childhood in the most ideal terms, and this brief period represents the only real respite they will know. Here, it is necessary to recall that, prior to the introduction of the Lintons, Catherine and Heathcliff are, in large measure, pure. Nelly Dean even reflects that “no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk”. Up to this point, being unacquainted with the world, the children do not deviate from societal ideals.

The Aftermath
Catherine’s death causes one of the few moments where Heathcliff displays genuine humanity as he bludgeons himself against a tree repeatedly in a display of grief (though Nelly actually associates this with his beastly nature). With her death, the final barrier between Heathcliff and his revenge falls away, and, after a few years pass, Heathcliff renews his diabolical efforts. During this time, Isabella realized her error and fled Heathcliff just after Catherine’s death, while Cathy is brought up by Edgar and Nelly. She enjoys a relatively peaceful childhood until Isabella’s death brings her in contact with the other members of the second generation. Hareton, Hindley’s son, has been left to endure every humiliation Heathcliff could conceive, and Heathcliff’s sickly biological son, Linton, is returned to him after Cathy reveals his arrival at the Grange.

Thank you
WW
 
Do you have a question for us?
 
Just a confirmation of the good quality (maybe high quality) of the English used. This is my strong feeling but, being Italian, I need a native speaker's opinion.
 
I would say the manor stands beside the road. Otherwise, it's perfect.
 
Back
Top