AI overview:
In traditional English households, a housekeeper would be addressed as “Mrs.”
regardless of their marital status, as a sign of respect for their position as the head of the female domestic staff; essentially, “Mrs” was used as an honorific title for a housekeeper, even if unmarried.
Not much of a staff but give credit and respect where it’s due.
I could NOT understand the tenant and his role. He said casually that at one point he might have liked to make a try at Cathy but decided against it. I guess he was just introduced so he could help narrate and have Nelly narrate to him.
His “dream” where he made blood appear when he scraped the phantom’s wrist was quite grisly to me. I was glad there was no further mention of similar situations.
These people all had definite mental health issues. Edward knew Catherine had a terrible temper and mistreated people but chose to marry her anyway, even knowing she adored Heathcliff.
Isabelle knew everyone feared Heathcliff but was drawn to him even after he killed her dog—in defiance of her brother and Catherine, I suppose. Maybe she thought she’d “reform” him?
I think Lockwood’s presence gives Nelly’s narration some credibility. Otherwise, telling the story alone, she might come off as a nosy, superstitious housekeeper with an overactive imagination. But Lockwood sees the people and homes that Nelly describes, and watches (with dismay) the way the inhabitants interact with one another. He’s a witness and that gives some credence to her story (plus provides her with a “natural” way to tell it – to a specific person, like an oral history).
So why would Isabella go off with Heathcliff?
Ah yes, plus both Lintons were raised very sheltered and never had consequences but were only petted and assumed that was their role in the world. I guess it makes sense in a way. I’ve never understood people drawn to abusive people but it definitely happens.
There is a lot written about the narrators in this book. We’re not really reading Nelly’s narration; we’re reading Lockwood’s recollection of her recital. This is a nice summary:
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/wuthering/point-of-view/
Re Nelly, I picked up a lot of negative vibes which could be due to the second hand narration. I like the analysis below of how much she either caused or intensified problems. I gather there was little she could do about Heathcliff’s criminal behavior with the town lawyer paid off. Not to mention locking women in the house and stealing their money was not unusual.
But there were numerous occasions where she would say:
“Don’t do that. No. Stop. Wrong. Bad idea………let me help you do that.”
Here’s a strong case against Nelly Dean.
She no longer merely blunders or misremembers events: she is agent provocateur and even premeditating villain.
She is, finally, both unreliable as narrator and dangerous as participant. Indeed, her open bias and active antagonism toward the novel’s principal figures are chiefly to blame for the death of Catherine Earnshaw.³ Moreover, she reveals to us on every page – in her own words and the words of Catherine, Edgar and Heathcliff – the fact of her hostility, her complicity, her guilt and her satisfaction in the story’s tragic outcome.
Channeling A Streetcar Named Desire.
To @Marilyn’s point re undeveloped brains, think how young all of these characters are! Nelly describes Linton as, “The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens” (p. 122).
The young people (both generations) were short of good role models. The first-generation Linton and Earnshaw parents died early on. The second-generation parents checked out pretty quickly, too: with Hindley drinking himself into oblivion and Cathy dying in childbirth. Edgar is present, but passive. The young people were left to their own devices, with disastrous results.
I think that view assigns Nelly way more power (and malicious intent) than she actually has. Granted, she may feel that Catherine #1 and Heathcliff received their just desserts for their bad decisions – a bit of schadenfreude, perhaps. But ultimately, the story doesn’t have a tragic outcome. We are left with Nelly singing by the fireside and telling Lockwood about Hareton and Catherine, “The crown of all my wishes will be the union of those two. I shall envy no one on their wedding day: there won’t be a happier woman than myself in England!” (p. 305).
Whoops, for a second I thought I was reading my newspaper. 
Hareton ended up as the only character I liked. He had devastatingly poor potential with both nature and nurture. But he fought it off and found a purpose to improving himself while under a great deal of abuse. And in doing so, settled Cathy the Younger into an improved version of herself.
It is true that the cast in the book was very young with the exception of servants. Yes, youth do make many questionable and bad choices. People were dying quite young in the book.
It’s hard to really know how much or little influence/power Nell had. On the one hand, she was a servant but on the other, she was an elder and one person most had a relationship with.
One thing about the book is it reminded me of the problems of small seemingly insular communities and the unhealthy tensions that can be created in such situations.
Yes, I remember that from Downton Abbey!
To me, Nelly is one of those characters who wonders why, when they’re only trying to help, they always make things worse. She didn’t have power but she did have influence. And gave an appearance of support when that might not have been the case.
Of course, this could all be Lockwood’s interpretation of Nelly’s recitation, which might be different than what really went on.
I agree, the Hareton/Cathy II relationship gave a little glimmer of hope that the chain of abusive, misogynistic relationships might finally come to an end. But it seemed almost tacked on to me, like EB needed to strain to find some daylight after endless gloom. (Think Jane Eyre, “Reader, I married him” after all that horror.)
I think this is true for me, too–or maybe I just saw the movie. I do remember the plot. This time round I’ve only made it through about half, and I’m not sure I’ll finish. It’s been a long month, and I just don’t want to spend any more time with these disagreeable people! Maybe I’ll reconsider after reading everyone’s comments.
Googling for bad reviews, I found this take, which gave me more appreciation for Bronte:
And that brought me to this Monty Python sketch (other sketches start after 1:59):
Yes, Cathy was a much improved version of herself with Hareton toward the end of the novel. The end of the book was much more optimistic than the whole rest of the book. Because both were still young, I’d think they had a chance to have a decent relationship, especially if they moved to the Grange, or better yet off to London or somewhere for a fresh start. I think many would have benefitted from going off somewhere for a fresh start and STAYING in the healthier new environment.
Maybe I’ve read too many romance novels over the years but I guessed early on that Hareton would win Cathy’s affections. I caught hint after hint that it was a strong possibility. So I never felt like it was tacked on.
I never saw Heathcliff as a romantic figure; he is trouble personified. I saw Hareton as the romantic figure but wondered how Bronte would manage to pull it off.
She had him read books!
@buenavista, that Guardian article was fascinating – but the writer was a bit cracked (in my opinion)! He describes Emily Brontë’s stint as a reluctant piano teacher, as follows:
Refusing to break into her own precious study time, she insisted on receiving her pupils only once the school day was over. The result, reported the oldest sister Laetitia, was the sight of three girls ranging from six to 10 years old emerging from the music room in tears at having lost so much of their playtime. Fifty years later Laetitia Wheelwright was still recalling Emily matter of factly: “I simply disliked her from the first.”
The author of the article then goes on to criticize Bronte for “putting her own needs above the children she was paid to teach,” declaring her to be “stonily indifferent to her moral responsibilities.”
I have no opinion on Emily Bronte at this point (maybe I will by the end of discussion). Perhaps she was “stonily indifferent to her moral responsibilities” – but scheduling late afternoon piano lessons is pretty thin evidence!
Instead of being disappointed in her for managing her own time, I kinda wanted to say, “you go, girl.” 
There is apparently a theory that the story got expanded hastily because they wanted the volume that it was published in to be longer. Wuthering Heights – A Tale that Grew in the Telling? | Vulpes Libris