The Presentation of Joseph in Wuthering Heights

Abstract

Scholars concerned with Wuthering Heights are generally agreed that Joseph is a fundamentally unsympathetic character, basing this judgement as they seem to have done chiefly on his cantankerousness and his religious fanaticism. Yet to confine oneself to such aspects of Joseph’s presentation is to turn him all too easily into a mere caricatural figure. That he is, in fact, a quite complex personage, and not without good points, may be gathered from a careful examination of the comparatively frequent references made to him in the narrative. Thus, for example, quite apart from noting his staunch devotion to the Earnshaws as masters of the Heights, we discover that one or two characters who have been in conflict with him will readily seek his help in moments of crisis, as if they were conscious of the moral virtues by which he time and again proves himself an utterly reliable servant, and one perhaps deserving of the reader’s respect and affection.