Ellen Dean (Nelly Dean)

Ellen Dean, called Nelly, is a sturdy, plain-spoken woman of nearly eighteen years' experience at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, serving first as nurse and then as housekeeper to two generations of the Catherine Earnshaw and Mr. Edgar Linton families. Arriving young as a nursemaid to the old mistress, she became foster-sister to Mr. Hindley Earnshaw Catherine Earnshaw and later the devoted caretaker of Hareton Earnshaw and young Catherine Earnshaw, the latter becoming her pride and comfort. Nelly possesses practical wisdom and a shrewd understanding of human nature, often attempting to counsel the passionate, willful characters around her—though her mockery of their troubles, she admits, betrays a certain hard-heartedness born of exasperation. Despite her frequent desire to escape the household's chaos and her disapproval of the moral darkness that takes root under Mr. Heathcliff's influence, she remains bound by loyalty and maternal feeling toward those in her care. Her narrative voice carries the weight of witnessing and enduring; she serves as moral witness to the novel's tragedies while remaining somewhat powerless to prevent them, her steady presence a stark counterpoint to the tempestuous emotions that govern the great houses.