Complexity of Love in <em>Wuthering Heights</em> and <em>Tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck</em>

In Indonesia, Buya Hamka explores the theme of love in Tenggelamnya Kapal Van der Wijck (1938) by portraying the journey of Zainuddin, a man who fell deeply in love with a pure Minang girl. Unfortunately, his proposal was rejected due to his different social status. The rejection bears a resemblance to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1847). Tragically, the two female characters in both stories died and left their lovers live in devastation.The purpose of this study is to reveal how the intrinsic elements and the socio- cultural aspect cannot be separated in understanding a literary work especially in grasping the narrative idea.The approach used in this study is the Genetic Structuralism Approach proposed by Lucien Goldmann (1980), which is an approach that bridges the structuralism and sociology of literature. This study applies a dialectical method, which is analyzing literary works by looking at narrative structures to find a world-view (general point of view) and to achieve a coherent, comprehensive and deeper understanding of meaning in the comparison of two works.