tense changes in the text. Or, conversely argued, the tense changes, especially the use of the present and the present perfect, cannot be used to prove that Mr. Lockwood makes his first two visits to Wuthering Heights in 1801, as has been claimed. Again, the unusual and elaborately constructed opening sentence of the novel and the tense switching play a special role here. This striking opening inevitably attracts the attention of the reader since particular relevance is usually assigned to the beginning of a novel. The paragraph boasts tense changes between the present, the future, the simple past, and includes a preposed present perfect.8
The present tense with Mr. Lockwood’s enthusiasm for Mr. Heathcliff and the country, and the “just” with the present perfect tense, only suggest that the report is contemporaneous with the time of his visit. The present is the historic present, it cannot be the real present, which means it refers to the time of the reported I, not to the present of the reporting I. With the help of the tense change, Mr. Lockwood gives the impression that he is reporting close to the events, i.e. at one day’s remove each time or by an even shorter interval, like any regular diarist. For this reason, in addition to tense changes, he repeatedly uses time adverbs like “yesterday” and “tomorrow”, or synonymous terms, in his later records. For example, at the beginning of Chapter 2, he begins the description of his second visit to Wuthering Heights with the following words: “Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold” (WH, 8). If this time reference were in fact real and not historical (i.e. if it referred to the present of the reporting I and not to the past experiences of the reported I), he would have had to write at least “the day before yesterday” instead of “yesterday” since he himself says that he was able to write his diary on the day after his second visit but not the night following it. At the earliest, he could have started his records two days after the visit. With the report being so precise, such a subtle discrepancy would be an alarm signal that something is not right ←35 | 36→with the figures of the hypothetical time scheme. At the beginning of Chapter 32, there is a further tense change that is dangerous for chronologists: the past simple with the time expression “[t];his September”. The introductions to Chapters 1 and 32 are particularly confusing, not only because of the preceding dates 1801 and 1802, but also because of the contradictory combination of the past simple with the temporal adverbials “just” and “[t]his September”. Since the past rather than the present is spoken of after the dates, the adverbials and the two named years lead to misconceptions when temporally determining the narrative perspective, owing to the deictic nature of the two time expressions.
In four other passages in Mr. Lockwood’s report, the present tense is used in several tense changes, which can lead to chronological errors, as with the opening sentence. To avoid this, a distinction must again be made between the real and the historic present by taking the reporting situation into account. Shortly before Ellen Dean begins her story, Mr. Lockwood reports:
The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire; my head felt hot, and the rest of me chill: moreover I was excited, almost to a pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain. This caused me to feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious effects from the incidents of to-day and yesterday. She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work […]. (WH, 41)
The “to-day and yesterday” can unequivocally only be referring to the day of Mr. Lockwood’s return from Wuthering Heights and the day before that, in November 1800, whereas the “as I am still” makes no sense for the day of the return. On the day of his return, he would have simply said that he was “already rather fearful of serious effects”. The not unintentionally parenthesised “as I still am” dates from January 1801, rules out “to-day” as the real present and consigns “yesterday” to November 1800. By contrast, the “as I still am” is the real present.
What is important in this regard is that Mr. Lockwood states that on that November night after his second visit, when Ellen Dean concludes the first half of her story, he says that he “meditated for another hour or two” (WH, 109). There is no evidence to suggest that he then begins recording events. The change of tense, the parentheses and the adverb “still” prove that this is a reference to January 1801 – when Mr. Lockwood reports all this – and date the first two visits to Wuthering Heights to November 1800.
The same applies to the repeated use of the present tense after Mr. Heathcliff’s visit to the sick Mr. Lockwood:
This is quite an easy interval. I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could enjoy something interesting. Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale? […] Yes: I remember […]. I’ll ring: she’ll be delighted to find me capable of talking cheerfully. (WH, 110)
←36 | 37→
This is followed by “Mrs. Dean came” in the past simple tense. The above is not real now-time, it is not the reporting present of the diary-writing I, but rather, once again, it is the historic present, the reported past of the experiencing I. Here, the report refers back to the time expression used at the beginning of the same chapter, where it says that all this happened four weeks after the visit to Wuthering Heights, meaning after Mr. Lockwood has been ill for four weeks and during which time Ellen Dean has not been able to continue with her story.
At the beginning of Chapter 15, the next passage in the present tense occurs. Regarding Ellen Dean’s qualities as narrator, Mr. Lockwood says:
Another week over – and I am so many days nearer health, and spring! I have now heard all my neighbour’s history, […] I’ll continue it […]. (WH, 191)
The tense of “[a];nother week over” cannot be clarified without a verb. He is probably referring to his state of health in January because Mr. Lockwood mentions spring and his recovery immediately afterwards. The “now” in the next sentence, on the other hand, most likely refers to 24 December 1800, when Ellen Dean concludes her story, and is therefore historical. Mr. Lockwood then announces the continuation of the report in January 1801, shortly before his third visit to Mr. Heathcliff – in the real present.
The fifth and last passage in the present tense appears at the end of Chapter 30 when Mr. Lockwood returns to the end of Ellen Dean’s story:
Thus ended Mrs. Dean’s story. Notwithstanding the doctor’s prophecy, I am rapidly recovering strength; and, though it be only the second week in January, I propose getting out on horseback in a day or two, and riding over to Wuthering Heights, to inform my landlord that I shall spend the next six months in London; and, if he likes, he may look out for another tenant to take the place, after October – I would not pass another winter here for much. (WH, 367)
From here on, it continues in the past tense: “Yesterday was bright, calm, and frosty. I went to the Heights as I proposed […]” (ibid.). Since it is not “I have already recovered” but “I am rapidly recovering strength”, the only conclusion possible is that Mr. Lockwood makes a quick recovery after the end of the story. This not only suggests that Ellen Dean has concluded her story by the end of December but that as far as the report is concerned “now-time” has been reached. The present tense used is the real not the historic. All this happens in the second week of January 1801. The triple change of tense (past – present – future – past) is unique in the text and is the basis for this line of argument. The change in tense can only mean that Mr. Lockwood chronicles his first two visits of November 1800 in the second week of January 1801 before his third visit to Wuthering Heights, and that he chronicles his third visit on the following day ←37 | 38→(“yesterday”). This “yesterday” has a completely different chronological meaning to the “to-day and yesterday” mentioned almost 400 pages earlier or the “yesterday afternoon” at the beginning of Chapter 2. Both are simply expressions of a historic present (WH, 8, 41).
Contrary to Miller’s opinion (1982, p. 72), the “present moment” does exist in Wuthering Heights: it is the reporting present condensed into the reporting moment and it lies
