Class Discrimination and Racial Conflict: Transporting Wuthering Heights to Windward Heights

Abstract

Aim: This paper aims to explore the intersections of class discrimination and racial conflict through a comparative reading of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Maryse Condé’s Windward Heights, with particular focus on how postcolonial rewriting reconfigures the ideological framework of a canonical Victorian text.

Methodology and Approach: The study adopts an intertextual and postcolonial analytical framework, drawing on the concept of intertextuality proposed by Julia Kristeva. It examines narrative strategies, characterization, and socio-cultural contexts to analyse how Windward Heights transforms the thematic concerns of Wuthering Heights.

Outcome: The analysis demonstrates that while Wuthering Heights contains latent suggestions of “otherness” and social hierarchy, Windward Heights foregrounds these issues by situating them within the historical realities of the Caribbean. Condé’s reworking amplifies marginalized voices and presents race as a central determinant of social relations, thereby revealing the interconnectedness of racial and class structures.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The paper concludes that Windward Heights is not merely a response to Wuthering Heights but a critical rearticulation that exposes its suppressed colonial subtext. By aligning class prejudice with racial discrimination, Condé’s novel expands the scope of postcolonial literary studies and invites a re-evaluation of canonical texts through alternative cultural and historical perspectives.