Avoiding Bias as a Stoic - Wuthering Heights THE FEMALE STOIC PODCAST

We will be looking at Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Rather than the omniscient narration of say, Shirley by Charlotte Bronte wherein a 3^rd person narrator sees all and knows all, or the epistolary narration in the Tenant of Wildfell hall by Anne Bronte, where the narration is related through letters or journal entries, Wuthering Heights has a complex dual-narrative structure with two often biased and unreliable narrators :  Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean.

And I think in part this is why I struggled with the book.

So, what makes Nelly Dean an unreliable/biased narrator?

If you don’t know the story – look out for my audiobook and free tracks

@Stephanie Poppins-The Female Stoic

on Insight Timer meditation app.

So, let’s look at the character of Nelly Dean

Nelly is characterised as a compassionate and loyal servant who acts as the novel's primary narrator. But her deep emotional involvement with the characters makes her an unreliable narrator. She is a caretaker figure to the younger generation but intervenes continually through her strong opinions, especially her eventual dislike for Heathcliff.

These emotions influence her storytelling. 

Ultimately, Nelly is a complex character who is both a participant in the story and its biased interpreter.  

What is Nelly supposed to represent in Wuthering Heights?

Nelly is set up as someone who is supposed to represent responsibility and sensibility. She is often the only source of stability and guidance in a story filled with destructive and neglectful parents. 

She tries to act as a voice of reason, but she exaggerates events for dramatic effect and presents her own interpretations as fact, making her a biased and unreliable source of information. Some critics argue her interventions even worsen situations. 

Nelly is characterised by her pseudo-romantic disposition and emotional involvement in the story. She uses drama and emotion in her narration, sometimes in an attempt to influence the reader's perception of events and characters. And her lifelong service to both the Earnshaw and Linton families does foster a deep loyalty to them. 

But this loyalty, combined with her strong opinions, means she favours the characters she likes, and recounts events from a biased memory (amusingly, always with pinpoint precision of what's being said - especially when it comes to Heathcliff's monologues.)

For example:

Heathcliff mistakenly reveals his entire plan to Nelly, who conveniently both hears and remembers everything he says.

Then she goes straight to Lockwood to recite it. This is the kind of behaviour we would expect from a cartoon – the villain being Heathcliff, the side kick being Nelly.

Nelly appears to drop in and out of love with each and every character, and her actions reflect this.

She refuses to keep secrets, telling Catherine,

"But trouble me with no more secrets: I'll not promise to keep them"

This rigid stance is often seen as unfeeling and potentially spiteful, given the intimate nature of the secrets Catherine shares.

She kicks Heathcliff when he's down

Nelly tries to coax Heathcliff into leaving by kicking him out into the corridor on his first night at the Heights as a child. And yet at other times, she appears to exercise compassion. 

She tells Heathcliff the world isn't worth living in

After Catherine's death, she says to Heathcliff,

Heathcliff, if I were you, I'd go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. The world is surely not worth living in now, is it?"

This is seen as a harsh, possibly spiteful, comment in his time of grief. 

So, what lessons can we take from Wuthering Heights and Emily Bronte’s emotional, impulsive narrators’ voices?

The stoic message here is to stand back to try to maintain objectivity and plausibility.

And how can we relate this to our own lives?

To remain unbiased as a Stoic involves cultivating clarity of perception, managing our emotional responses, and using reason to focus on facts and the common good.

This is about minimizing the impact of personal biases and external opinions on one's inner peace and actions.

And why is it important to remain unbiased?

To maintain plausibility and remain true to our virtue which dictates emotional reactivity is damaging to our inner peace.

Associating emotions with experiences is fine. But allowing emotions to dictate our behaviour and make us react unnecessarily, makes us fall short when aiming for our higher self.

We are often in our daily experiences submerged in the chaos of external situations – chaos created by others.  

Bias often stems from a desire to control or change this chaos – these external realities. If we favour for example, one child’s voice over another, we are negating the value of a voice which is both relevant and of equal value, whether we agree with it or not.

The Discipline of Assent (Managing Impressions):

We must be highly aware of our initial impressions and judgments about events.

Events themselves are neutral.

It is our judgments about them that can create and exacerbate emotional turmoil and bias.

Obviously, this is a narrative. But as with all narratives, this is an observation of human behaviour. And this is why we read. This is Literary empowerment.

So, what should we, as Stoics, do when called to relate the particulars of an occurrence, or intervene?

We must practice stepping back, pausing, and asking ourselves Is this a fact, or is this my opinion/bias?

As I say each week, The Power is in the Pause.

We should use Reason and Logic:

Actively employ logic to guide your thoughts and actions.

Emotions can cloud judgment and introduce bias. Strive to be a sound, balanced, and objective thinker by seeking evidence and understanding the interconnected nature of situations.

Seek Different Perspectives:

An unbiased person seeks to understand different viewpoints and is open to changing their opinion based on new information. Avoid becoming so firmly rooted in one position that you alienate yourself from an evolving understanding.

Focus on Virtue and the Common Good:

Ensure your actions are guided by the four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, and self-discipline. Acting for the common good naturally moves you beyond narrow personal bias, encouraging fair treatment and ethical behaviour toward all people.

Cultivate Emotional Resilience:

Stoicism is not about eliminating emotions, but "domesticating" them and not letting them control your actions. A calm mind helps you make better, less biased decisions and respond with composure rather than reactivity. 

Rationality, characterized by logical thinking and decision-making grounded in reason rather than emotion, is a valuable skill to cultivate.

Often in our younger years, we may be inclined to yield to irrational impulses, but with maturity and accrued wisdom, we can progressively hone our logical thinking abilities. Individuals who demonstrate rational thinking tend to be forward-looking, preparing for various outcomes, as opposed to their irrational counterparts who are more prone to impulsive reactions and externalizing blame. While formal education plays a crucial role in fostering rational thinking, the journey to achieving genuine rationality is usually lifelong. This is echoed in the principles of Stoicism, which highlight the importance of relying on facts over emotions for personal growth and success.

And of course, Practice Self-Reflection

Which leads us to our journal task for today

And don't forget to take a look at the Journaling course with The Female Stoic 

In order to regularly assess our actions and decisions, we can adopt the use of daily journaling or reflection.

This helps us identify ingrained biases and emotional triggers, and allows continuous improvement and alignment with our inner virtue.

Rationality is about making choices based on logic. It's about thinking about the long-term effects, other people's views, and what is right or wrong. It also means being open to new information and changing our decisions when needed.

So in our journals we will consider a moment when we related or gave an account of something we had witnessed.

What did we say?

What did we do?

How did we say it?

And what effect did this have on those around us?

Then underneath, how could we have come to this from a more rational point of view?

In conclusion, we must strike a balance between rationality and emotion

We are not seeking to eliminate emotions like anger or anxiety.

But we understand a rational, non-biased approach when relating events, can prevent negative feelings that may lead to the harmful, impulsive behaviour of ourselves and others.

We are seeking to create a distance from the emotion working with what we know to be the irrefutable facts.

We understand we must learn to recognise our biases and the factors influencing our decisions, remaining open to different perspectives,

Keep learning how to live as long as you live

said Seneca

And this sentiment urges us to continually strive towards the attainment of our Higher Self through education, moderation and rational decision making.