Mr. Lockwood

Mr. Lockwood comes to Wuthering Heights because he is interested in one of Heathcliff’s properties, Thrushcross Grange. Therefore, he then becomes Heathcliff’s tenant. When these two characters meet, the relationship they have up is very cold and distant, that’s why Lockwood asks Nelly, the maid, to tell him Heathcliff’s story. Lockwood’s narration forms a frame around Nelly’s; he serves as an intermediary between Nelly and the reader. A somewhat vain, pompous and presumptuous gentleman, he deals very clumsily with all the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights too. Lockwood comes from a more domesticated region of England, and he finds himself at a loss when he witnesses the strange household’s disregard for the social conventions that have always structured his world. As a narrator, his vanity and unfamiliarity with the story occasionally lead him to misunderstand events.

He is essentially in the story to act as the substitute reader, asking questions and learning the history of Heathcliff, the Earnshaws and the Lintons from Ellen Dean.