Reading Diary

This instruction for a reading diary is meant to help you consider what features you should pay attention to while reading a novel in general (and not only Wuthering Heights). Hence, don't fret if you don't feel all the points are particularly relevant to the novel you're reading! What to do? Take a notebook and divide it into sections that you title in the following manner (remember to mark down the page number of the information you're jotting down when possible): Setting What is revealed about the setting? When is the story set? Where does it take place? How are the surroundings described? Pay attention to both o the physical setting (castle, house, farm, forest, moors, sea, city, room, country etc.) and o the cultural setting (portrayal of the society and its values) Do you think that the setting contributes to the mood or atmosphere of the narrative? Is the setting foregrounded? (Is the setting preeminent in the narrative) Or is the setting rather vague and in the background? (consider whether the story would work in any setting just as well) o What is the relation of a particular setting to a novel's main characters, and can you imagine them in a different setting. consider if the author just informs us that the action happens in a specific real place (e.g. Yorkshire) a fictional one (e.g. Gondal), or merely a general place (an industrial city). Does the novel describe landscape, cities, and interiors of houses in great detail? What does each approach imply about the writer's attitude toward reality (or "the world")?

Characters & characterisation Who are the characters? Allocate at least one page for one character (probably more for the main characters): Old Earnshaw, Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, Nelly Dean, Edgar Linton, Isabella Linton, Catherine Linton, Lockwood, Joseph, Linton (the son of Isabella and Heathcliff), Hareton, Zillah. What are they like? How do you formulate your idea of the character? o Is the author showing or telling us? (Showing: when the narrator conveys the characters through their own speech (dialogue) or by their actions. Telling: when the characters are described to us directly; by narrator or another character). physical description telling us what the character looks like dialogue showing what the character says physical actions showing what the character does (particularly in relation to what he or she says or thinks.) thoughts, or metal actions showing the character's inner life, what the character thinks

judgment by others showing (if through dialogue) what other characters say and think about this fictional person the narrator's judgement what narrator tells us about the character the author's judgement what the author thinks of the character (sometines difficult to determine until late in the narrative). The work has to be considered as a whole. o Ask yourself do you like the character or not? And why/ why not? Do you understand the characters (and their motivations?) Why/why not? Are the characters believable? Why/why not? Does the character change throughout the narrative? What type of characters do we have(protagonist, antagonist, flat, round... (look at the separate list) Do the characters have a specific role in the narrative? What?

Narrative technique & Point of view Who is telling the story/who is the narrator? First person narrator Third person narrator o omniscient narrator (One characteristic of an omniscient narrator is that such a story-teller, unlike any human being who has ever lived, knows what's going on inside the mind of other people or at least other characters) o limited narrator character narrator (is the narrator also a character in the novel) Whose perspective is the story told from? How is the story told? (consider letter writing, diary entries, telling a story to another character, intrusive narrator --> does the narrator acknowledge that he/she is telling a story and address the reader directly?) o direct discourse (dialogue) indicated dialogue where the narrator tells us who is peaking, and possibly how something is said, through conventional phrases (e.g. She looked at the hotel room and she thought, "It will be nice to stay here tomorrow") omission of conventional phrases so that the dialogue is expressed through dashes (new dash for each speaker; speakers take turns) o indirect discourse (narrator tells) tells about a conversation, does not show it (e.g. She looked at the hotel room. She thought it would be nice to stay there the next day") o free indirect discourse (a character's thoughts/opinions expressed in third-person narrator's narration) involves both a character's speech and narrator's comment, note how "she" has been omitted from the second sentence in the example. The narrator and the character are melded (e.g. She looked at the hotel room. It would be nice to stay here tomorrow) Is the narrator reliable or unreliable? (do you trust the narrator? and does your trust in the narrator affect your reading/interpretation?)

Does the narrative unravel through the use of symbols, images and figurative language?

Imagery and figurative language

Consider how the language is used to "paint" a vivid image in the reader's mind (or any other kind of sensory experience; sound, touch, smell) Figurative language is symbolic or metaphorical rather than literal. Things are compared or analogised in order to make some idea or feeling clearer or more intense (eg. metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole) Symbolism

Symbols are used to represent ideas or qualities. A symbol represents something else than it is, often giving an abstract concept a tangible figure. The examples below are rather conventional symbols a red rose is often seen as a symbol of love a white dove represents peace Structure How does the story unfold? Is it told in a linear (=chronological manner) or do the events unravel in a disjointed order (non-linear)? Is there one single plot? Or do you find subplots? (if so, do they support the main plot?) There can be a frame narrative that "frames" an embedded narrative (a backdrop the to underlying narrative) Are there flashbacks (= analepsis) or flashforwards (=prolepsis)? What effect do these have on the narrative? Suspense is created chiefly through the narrative structure; by means of chronology and disruption in the linear narrative). Do you notice this in the narrative. Try to mark down the years mentioned in Wuthering Heights so that you can build a chronological timeline after completing the novel. Theme and subject The terms "theme" and "subject" are often used interchangeably. However, in literary analysis the two have different meanings and can be distinguished from one another in the following manner: subject is the general topic or topics the book implicitly discusses theme is what the novel implies we should think about such subjects (generally theme is described as the central idea(s) that the writer explores through a text) Motif A motif is a recurrent element that supports the themes; a distinctive feature or dominant idea in a literary work (sometimes people call motifs mini themes) Consider whether some element is repeated 3