Walt Whitman
Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2012
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- Italian
- Home Country
- Italy
- Current Location
- Italy
From ''Wuthering Heights'' by Emily Brontë (chapter 4). The following is a rewriting of a pretty long conversation between Lockwood and Ellen Dean, the two main narrators of the novel.
(The brief explanations in brackets are mine)
Heathcliff had a son, now dead, who was Cathy’s husband. She lives high up at Wuthering Heights [Cathy lives there still]. She was a Linton before she married, the daughter of Ellen Dean’s master. She grew up here at Thrushcross Grange [where Lockwood and Ellen are at the moment, talking about Heathcliff and his peculiar family at the Heights].
For a moment, Lockwood is confused. But of course, the young lady at Wuthering Heights is not the ghost he had seen the night before. But he doesn’t mention the ghost. He doesn’t want to scare Ellen.
Could you please have a look at the verb tenses I’ve used? Do you find the sequence of present and past tense logical or a bit odd?
Thanks
WW
(The brief explanations in brackets are mine)
Heathcliff had a son, now dead, who was Cathy’s husband. She lives high up at Wuthering Heights [Cathy lives there still]. She was a Linton before she married, the daughter of Ellen Dean’s master. She grew up here at Thrushcross Grange [where Lockwood and Ellen are at the moment, talking about Heathcliff and his peculiar family at the Heights].
For a moment, Lockwood is confused. But of course, the young lady at Wuthering Heights is not the ghost he had seen the night before. But he doesn’t mention the ghost. He doesn’t want to scare Ellen.
Could you please have a look at the verb tenses I’ve used? Do you find the sequence of present and past tense logical or a bit odd?
Thanks
WW
