Razyé
The significance of the major characters in this novel is derived from their relationship to antecedents in Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. In this case, Razyé is the novel’s analogue to one of the most famously iconic figures in literature: Heathcliff. He is a foundling—a very dark-skinned and almost a feral “wild boy”—who is brought into the family by Hubert Gagneur and raised almost as a biological offspring.
Cathy Gagneur
Cathy Gagneur is the novel’s equivalent to Bronte’s Catherine Earnshaw. It is out on the wily Windward Heights that she falls tragically in love with the wild Razyé. A match seemingly made in heaven because Cathy is considered a bit wild herself.
Aymeric de Linsseuil
Because Windward Heights is a retelling of a previously written story, one of the aspects of drama it lacks is suspense. A great deal of the narrative is pre-determined and know well in advance to anyone who has read Wuthering Heights. Aymeric is rich white planter who is a stand-in for Edgar Linton. Since the story template mandates the tragic implications of the love affair between Cathy and Heathcliff, the familiar reader will know beforehand that she is going to wind up marrying Aymeric.
Irmine Linsseuil
Any reader who sees the marriage of Cathy to Aymeric running straight at them through the heights of Windwardcan also guess at the introduction of Irmine Linsseuil what her fate is to be. Among all the characters in Wuthering Heights who are portrayed as iconic representatives of tragic love affairs, the irony is that arguably the single most tragic figure is Isabella Linton. She winds up marrying Heathcliff (meaning Irmine marries Razyé) who only does so for the purpose of torturing…well, pretty much everybody, including his wife.
Cathy and Razyé II
The first part of Windward Heights parallels the first part of Wuthering Heights along a fairly straight line. Divergences exist enough so that it is not simply a paint-by-numbers remake, but the alignment is much more straightforward in the first half. The second half, however, takes some very significant departures on account of the book’s most significant additions to the story. Bronte allows Cathy and Heathcliff’s love to last forever in an abstract way, but not in the form of a bloodline. That is changed here with the addition of a daughter produced by Cathy Gagneur and Razyé who is, of course, also named Cathy. Meanwhile, Razyé’s marriage to Irmine also produces a child: a son named, of course, Razyé II. And it is here, in this relationship between half-siblings, that the story of Windward Heights finally becomes its own unique tale.
