ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS
RE-IMAGINING THE VICTORIAN CLASSICS: POSTCOLONIAL FEMINIST REWRITINGS OF EMILY BRONTË
by
Yannel M. Celestrin
Florida International University, 2018
Miami, Florida
Professor Martha Schoolman, Major Professor
Through a post-structural lens, I will focus on the Caribbean, specifically Cuba, Guadeloupe, Marie-Galante, and Roseau, and how the history of colonialism impacted these islands. As the primary text of my thesis begins during the Cuban War of Independence of the 1890s, I will use this timeframe as the starting point of my analysis. In my thesis, I will compare Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heightsand Maryse Condé’s Windward Heights. Specifically, I will examine Condé’s processes of reimagining and rewriting Brontë’s narrative by deconstructing the notions of history, race, gender, and class. I will also explore ways in which Condé disrupts the hegemonic and linear notions of narrative temporality in an attempt to unsilence the voices of colonized subjects. I argue that Condé’s work is a significant contribution to the practice of rewriting as well as to the canon of Caribbean literary history. I argue that the very process of rewriting is a powerful mode of resistance against colonizing powers and hegemonic discourse.
