The formation of the literary subject’s identity

A Croatian undergraduate thesis (and Brontë-related):

Emocije i tvorba identiteta likova (u Orkanskim visovima Emily Brontë

Ina Delić

Undergraduate thesis / Završni rad 2025 Degree Grantor / Ustanova koja je dodijelila akademski / stručni stupanj: Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences / Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku, Filozofski fakultet, 2025

This paper analyzes how emotions, as socio-cultural practices, can influence the formation of the literary subject’s identity. According to anti-essentialist theory (J. Butler, M. Foucault, J. Derrida, and others), identity is neither innate nor permanent, but socially determined in the sense that society orients the individual toward an ideal and toward what is considered appropriate in a given cultural-historical moment. The formation of identity also depends on emotions. According to S. Ahmed’s theory, emotions can influence people because they are not created exclusively within the individual; rather, their experience is predetermined by society and by those in power.  In this paper, the characters of Catherine and Heathcliff from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights are analyzed as examples of socially predetermined identities. Using examples from the novel, the paper more closely examines how society explicitly influenced the formation of their identities: their fates, actions, and attitudes shaped by the social class and gender roles imposed on them as acceptable. Furthermore, the paper analyzes how Victorian rural English society played a role in spreading prejudice and negative attitudes toward differences, particularly in relation to Heathcliff as a character of foreign origin.  The novel addresses issues such as the harmfulness of patriarchy and nationalism for the community, and implicitly highlights entrenched racism toward Heathcliff throughout the work. The aim is to show how community, history, and politics govern society and how they can affect the creation of emotions in individuals. Gender and social roles appear as social constructs from which the characters cannot detach themselves, since they experience them as inseparably tied to their identities. The dynamics of power in the novel shift depending on which character, at a given moment, succeeds in appropriating more of the traits and roles that English society considers suitable and genuinely English.