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Abstract
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This study contributes to existing scholarship on Wuthering Heights by offering a reconsideration of Heathcliff’s character through the lens of racial trauma and cultural criticism, rather than viewing the novel solely as a narrative of personal conflict or Gothic passion. It seeks to nuance traditional readings of Heathcliff by situating his violence, emotional intensity, and marginalization within broader discourses of race, empire, and hybridity in the Victorian context.
The significance of the study lies in its interdisciplinary methodological approach, which brings postcolonial criticism, psychoanalytic theory, and affect theory into dialogue. This approach allows for a more layered interpretation of Heathcliff’s character than studies that rely on a single critical framework, and highlights how racial trauma can be simultaneously ideological, psychological, and affective in literary representation.
Beyond Brontë studies, the research has broader theoretical value for trauma studies, discourse analysis, and interdisciplinary literary criticism. It demonstrates how literary texts function as spaces where ideology, subjectivity, and emotion intersect, offering insight into how trauma is narratively constructed and mediated. In addition, the study’s discourse-oriented analysis of a canonical nineteenth-century novel illustrates the usefulness of applying contemporary critical frameworks to classic texts, thereby bridging literary interpretation and theoretical analysis.
Finally, this research may serve as a methodological model for examining racial trauma in other nineteenth-century literary works, contributing to ongoing discussions about race, identity, and empire in both historical and contemporary literary studies.
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