Servitude during the 1800s has been the subject of much research and discussion. A Victorian novel about the conflicts of an upper-class family is not complete without the inclusion of a trusty servant, or a nosy maid, who often add a great deal to the plot and character of the novel overall. The main servant figures in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847), Nelly Dean, serves as unusual example of the patterns of servitude prevalent in the 1800. During a time of turbulent social change, stays with the family for years, despite, as history dictates, the opportunities that others of the lower class had at the time.
             In order to properly analyze the roles Nelly and Joseph play in Wuthering Heights, one must look at the social conditions of servants during the time the novel was written and takes place. Since the 1780s when a tax was imposed on all male domestic servants to encourage men to go into the army, most servants in a household were often women. In an upper class household, there was often a hierarchy between the servants themselves. One servant, who has often been with the family for a number of years (in the case of Wuthering Heights, Nelly), made sure the household was running smoothly and was often more educated that the rest: "I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of..." (62) Others were often the children of poor farmers or landless peasants who were forced to go into servitude for lack of education and/or better employment opportunities. (Cannon, 1997) There was a!
             range of positions that the servants held-there were "upper" servants such as a butler, footman, governess, skilled cook, housekeeper, senior parlor-maid, head house-maid and lady's maid, as well as the 'lower' servants including kitchen-maid, scullery-maid, laundress, nursemaid, housemaid, stable-boy etc. (Wojtczak 200...