A mulher vitoriana e o reconhecimento de si: uma leitura política de Wuthering Heights (1847), de Emily Brontë

Abstract

Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily Brontë's only novel, has been continuously revisited by scholars and critics, remaining an object of debate due to its aesthetic complexity and enigmatic character. The present work aims to investigate the work from its creative genesis and its place in Victorian female literary production. The novel's unique structure clashes with the Victorian ideal of "domestic happiness," an expression that synthesizes the power relations responsible for defining the social role of women in nineteenth-century England, often associated with the figure of the "angel of the home." In this context, the meaning inscribed in the form of the work transcends the narrative of passion and conflict between Catherine and Heathcliff, allowing a critical reading of the historical and ideological tensions that crossed the female condition in that period. The research seeks to understand how personal, family and sociocultural experiences related to Emily Brontë's trajectory resonate in the aesthetic elaboration of Wuthering Heights, articulating aspects of the author's creative process to the contradictions present in Victorian society. To this end, genetic criticism is adopted as a theoretical framework, in dialogue with the proposal of the political unconscious of Fredric Jameson (1992) and with the contributions of Carla Alexandra Ferreira (2018), in order to interpret the work as a socially symbolic act. From this perspective, a political reading of the novel is proposed, understanding how its narrative form mobilizes and reorganizes historical and ideological contradictions that reveal tensions related to the representation of women, female autonomy and the power structures of Victorian society.