Inequality in Wuthering Heights and Tess of the D'Urbervilles

In Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Wuthering Heights, the theme of inequality can be seen in the presentation of class conflict, and the vast power imbalance between those of a higher social status and those of lower; marked by the boom in industrialization, the beginning of the 19th century was characterized by social division – a key aspect of both Hardy and Brontë’s writing. In Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy portrays Tess as a pure and naïve country girl who is seemingly trapped by the actions of her ancestors, the D’Urbervilles, who took advantage of the lower-class women such as Tess is now – the inequality that Tess must persevere is therefore based on making reparations from an ancient abuse of power and class: ‘’Justice’ was done, and the President of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess’. Hardy, in taking a surprisingly sympathetic defence of Tess, through the quotations surrounding ‘’Justice’’, despite her being a ‘fallen women’ in the eyes of Victorian society, seems to portray the class divide and abuse of power as an unjust system – with the predetermined path set for Tess seemingly entirely at odds with her innocent and maternal way of life: Tess is, to society, ‘a fly on the billiard table of indefinite length and of no more consequence to the surroundings of that fly’ – however, Hardy aims to show that her experiences not a sole one – she represents the inequality that all poor women faced, especially in the poverty stricken years of 1880 to 1890. In Wuthering Heights, Cathy is faced with a similar problem – as a poor woman, she is unable to marry Heathcliff and instead aims to marry Linton, in order her increase her own social status, and to help Heathcliff remove himself from ‘[her] brother’s care’. Although Cathy’s situation is far less unjust – herself admitting that it would ‘degrade her’ to marry Heathcliff, thus enforcing another inequal class divide over Heathcliff after slightly reforming herself at Thrushcross Grange – the class divide between Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, and the Lintons and Earnshaws, is similarly symbolic of social divides. For Brontë, the end of the class divide is only provided for the two families in the equal union between Hareton and Catherine – a break in the cycle of relationships characterized by unjust power dynamics and inequality; ‘her cousin… at last summoned the courage to help her; she held her frock, and he filled it with the first that came to hand’.