Beyond Whitewashing:

The other problem with Wuthering Heights film adaptations

Surely someone in the film industry will remember that Mr. Lockwood exists, right?

Emily Brontë’s gothic novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), has inspired numerous film, television movies, and mini-series adaptations. Brontë’s plot follows childhood friends (and somewhat adopted siblings) Heathcliff and Catherine (Cathy) Earnshaw as they grow up on the wild and beautiful Yorkshire moors of the North English countryside. As Heathcliff and Cathy mature and grow closer together, their complicated romance is thwarted by social barriers of gender, class, and race—themes that continue to resonate with contemporary audiences.  

Enter Emerald Fennell’s upcoming 2026 adaptation of this beloved Victorian novel, which has already ignited heated, yet valid, complaints amongst fans, primarily surrounding casting choices. Though Brontë explicitly describes Heathcliff as “dark-skinned,” most adaptations of Wuthering Heights—excluding the 2011 version directed by Andrea Arnold—depict Heathcliff as white. Fans quickly spoke against Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights when it was announced that Australian actor, Jacob Elordi, was cast as Heathcliff.

While there is certainly an issue with the constant whitewashing of Heathcliff’s character in Wuthering Heights adaptations, another critical yet often overlooked element of the novel is seen in the omission of Mr. Lockwood, the primary narrator of the story, who is frequently missing in contemporary adaptations.

Mr. Lockwood is the reader's initial guide into the world of Wuthering Heights. By the end of the novel, the reader knows little about Mr. Lockwood, but when we, as readers or film audiences, are first introduced to him, he appears as the tenant of Heathcliff's property. Mr. Lockwood narrates as if he were writing a diary entry, and through his eyes, the reader first sees the moody Heathcliff: “a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose.”

The absence of Mr. Lockwood in the most recent film adaptations of Wuthering Heights erases his crucial outsider perspective, obscuring the novel's exploration of “otherness,” because that is who Heathcliff ultimately is, an “other” who cannot seem to fit in even when he changes his clothes, even when he gains his fortune, even when he owns multiple sets of property. By taking out Mr. Lockwood’s narration, a superficial characterization of Heathcliff is frequently depicted in adaptations that streamline the narrative of Brontë’s novel.

Additionally, the mode of narration in Wuthering Heights stands out from other Victorian novels because of its double narrators. Mr. Lockwood, shortly after meeting Heathcliff, spends the night at his landlord’s home during a bad storm and experiences a terrifying supernatural encounter with Cathy’s ghost. Mr. Lockwood’s curiosity leads him to ask one of the servants at his rental property about Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. It is at this point that the reader is introduced to the second narrator of Brontë’s novel, Nelly Dean. Nelly tells Mr. Lockwood the violent and tragic story of Heathcliff, the Earnshaw’s, and the Linton’s. Because Nelly's narration is obviously colored by her own biases, her role as an unreliable narrator brings into question what is true about Heathcliff’s character and what has been exaggerated to fit a narrative based on social prejudices.

Though Nelly appears in many film and television adaptations of Wuthering Heights, her role as narrator and character shifts from version to version. In the 2009 serial version of Wuthering Heights directed by Coky Giedroyc, the story of Heathcliff and Cathy is not told by Nelly to Mr. Lockwood but is instead presented as a flashback when Heathcliff sees Cathy’s daughter in a window and is reminded of his late lover.

Heathcliff is a character of profound contradictions: a victim of cruelty who becomes a perpetrator of violence. The dual perspectives of Mr. Lockwood and Nelly are necessary for fully appreciating Emily Brontë’s exploration of race, class, and social prejudice. By omitting the narrators of the novel, filmmakers risk simplifying and overly romanticizing Heathcliff's character, which contradicts with his role as the story’s gothic villain.

Presenting narration in film and television is tricky, but a faithful adaptation of Wuthering Heights must consider not only how the audience and reader perceive Heathcliff but also how he is perceived by the characters within the novel. It is easy for directors to cast Heathcliff as a white man when they exclude the points of view that explicitly see him as an “other,” but embracing the complexities of the narrative structure, including the crucial role of Mr. Lockwood, will lead to richer, more nuanced, and ultimately more faithful renditions of this literary masterpiece.