This essay is a reading of Jeanette Winterson’s novel Written on the Body. There are three major areas regarding to which the text is analysed: the textual ambiguity of the rhetorical voice, the linguistic characteristics of the work and the reliability of its narrator. The first chapter discusses the theoretical framework used in reference to the novel. The main theory applied into the subject of sexual ambiguity is Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. Since the novel deals with a narrator of unspecified gender, the second chapter examines the ambiguous gendered identity of the narrative persona. The third chapter discusses the extraordinary linguistic characteristics of the novel and analyses how the narrator in the novel can remain of sexually unidentifiable nature. As there is a great deal of ambiguity, which makes the reader question the credibility of the narrative voice, the issue of reliability is discussed in the fourth chapter of the essay.

As many theorists have pointed out, queer history is often erased within traditional, heteronormative historiography. Consequently, historians cannot recount the gay and lesbian past by conventional techniques of evidence and documentation. Instead they recuperate and reinvent queer history using strategies normally associated with the writing of fiction. This thesis examines three works of late twentieth century lesbian historical fiction that rewrite the past in order to render visible queer intimacy, sexuality, and desire. Jeanette Winterson's The Passion (1987), Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet (1998), and Helen Humphreys' Leaving Earth (1997) employ spectacularly visible lesbian heroines who symbolically reverse lesbian invisibility in mainstream historical narratives by displaying themselves as public figures or stage performers. There are ongoing debates in contemporary queer theory and historiography about the extent to which it is politically useful to privilege highly visible individuals when recovering the marginalized gay and lesbian past. Winterson's, Waters', and Humphreys' novels enact this debate, and exemplify a trend in contemporary lesbian historical fiction in which lesbian heroines are empowered by their ability to control their own visibility and to ensure the perpetuation of their history.

This study sets out from the premise that the fantastic, in the hands of the women writers with feminist awareness,can be used as a tool to subvert patriarchal gender roles that are culturally constructed. The dissertation aims at analysing the fantastic novels by Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and Nights at the Circus, and by Jeannette Winterson, The Passion and The.PowerBook as examples in which the transgression of gender roles is achieved through the use of fantastic images. The analysis of the fantastic images in these novels is confined to the definitions by Tzetvan Todorov and Rosemary Jackson. The study asserts that through an efficient use of the fantastic mode, both Carter and Winterson negate culturally dominant notions of reality, whereby they resist the cultural constructions of gender. Within the framework of this dissertation, some concepts like the New Woman, historiographic metafiction, the lesbian continuum and compulsory heterosexualism are also studied where they become indispensable to the role that the fantastic images play. Thus, this study identifies each fantastic image in the novels studied with its possible cultural and political implications so that the &ldquo / un-seen&rdquo / of the culture, a term suggested by Jackson, can be seen. In other words, the study concentrates on the subversive nature of the fantastic images so as to see the ways in which the rigid boundaries of the gender roles in patriarchy can be transgressed

This thesis investigates acts of ‘re-telling’ in four selected novels by Jeanette Winterson and Alan Warner.Re-telling, as I have defined it, refers to the re-imagining and re-writing of existing narratives from mythology, fairy tale, and folktale, as well as the re-visioning of scientific discourses and historiography. I argue that this re-telling is representative of a contemporary cultural phenomenon, and is evidence of a postmodern genre that some literary theorists have termed re-visionary fiction. Despite the prevalent re-telling of canonical stories throughout literary history, there is much evidence for the emergence of a specifically contemporary trend of re-visionary literature. Part One of this thesis comprises two chapters which deal with Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry (1989) and Weight (2005) respectively. In these chapters, I argue that, although the feminist and historiographic elements of her work are significant, there exist further motivations for Winterson’s acts of re-telling in both Sexing the Cherry and Weight. In Chapter One, I analyse Winterson’s subversion and re-imagining of historiography, as well as her re-telling of fairy tale, in Sexing the Cherry. Chapter Two provides a discussion of Winterson’s re-telling of the myth of Atlas from Greek mythology, in which she draws on the discourses of science, technology, and autobiography, in Weight. Part Two focuses on Warner’s first two novels, Morvern Callar (1995) and These Demented Lands (1997). In both novels, Warner re-imagines aspects of Christian, Celtic and pagan mythology in order to debunk the validity of biblical archetypes and narratives in a contemporary working-class setting, as well as to endow his protagonist with goddess-like or mythical sensibilities. Chapter Three deals predominantly with Warner’s use of language, which I argue is central to his blending of mythological and contemporary content, while Chapter Four analyses his use of myth in these two novels. This thesis argues that while both Winterson and Warner share many of the aims associated with contemporary re-visionary fiction, their novels also exceed the boundaries of the genre in various ways. Winterson and Warner may, therefore, represent a new class of re-visionary writers, whose aim is not solely to subvert the pre-text but to draw on its generic discourses and thematic conventions in order to demonstrate the generic and discursive possibilities inherent in the act of re-telling.

This thesis investigates the subversion of Biblical discourse in Jeanette Winterson’s first two novels, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit and Boating for Beginners. By rewriting Biblical stories Winterson challenges traditional Western religious discourses and their rules for heteronormative social and sexual behaviours and desires. Winterson’s texts respond to the patriarchal nature of socially pervasive texts, such as the Bible, by encouraging her readers to regard these texts with suspicion, thus highlighting what can be seen as a ‘postmodern concern’ with the notion of ‘truth’. Chapter One of this thesis comprises a discussion of Biblical boundaries. These boundaries, I argue, are a process of historical oppression which serves to subjugate and control women, a practice inherent in the Bible and modern society. The Biblical boundaries within which women are expected to live, are carefully portrayed in Oranges and then comically and blasphemously mocked in Boating. Chapter One also argues that Winterson’s sexuality plays an important role in the understanding of her texts, despite her desire for her sexuality to remain ‘outside’ her writing. Chapter Two of this thesis, examines the mix of fact and fiction in Oranges, in order to create a new genre: fictional memoir. The chapter introduces the concept of the ‘autobiographical pact’ and the textual agreement which Winterson creates with her readers. In this chapter, I examine Winterson’s powerful subversion of Biblical discourse, through her narration of Jeanette’s ‘coming out’ within a Biblical framework. Chapter Three of this thesis examines Winterson’s second book, Boating, and the serious elements of this comic book. This chapter studies the various postmodern narrative techniques used in Boating in order to subvert Biblical and historical discourse. Chapter Three highlights Winterson’s postmodern concern with the construction of history as ‘truth’. Finally, Chapter Four compares Oranges and Boating, showing the texts as differing, yet equally relevant textual counterparts. This chapter examines the anti-feminine characters in both texts and Winterson’s ability to align her reader with a feminist or lesbian viewpoint. This thesis argues that Winterson’s first two texts deliberately challenge Biblical discourse in favour of a postmodern feminist viewpoint.

The phrase “glimpsing the balance between earth and sky” in the thesis title is taken from Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. In this novel, the central character Jeanette believes she has glimpsed the possibility that human relationships can find their mirror in the relationship with God, as she understands the divine Other. This glimpse has set her wandering, trying to find such a balance. This examination of four selected novels by Jeanette Winterson and John Irving shows that for Irving, “glimpsing the balance” means in part, giving voice to a strongly “Christian” view of humankind and human nature but in an age where the prevailing intellectual worldview is strongly sceptical of any Grand Narrative. The “voice” expressed in Irving’s work has to be situated, like Winterson’s, as one among many possibilities. Irving’s voice is itself masked as different, other/Other, freakish, in the narrative worlds he creates. Through his use of grotesque comedy as a vehicle for deeper philosophical concerns, Irving asks us: What after all in the postmodern world is the main show? This thesis argues that if Winterson and Irving are testing or re-presenting a Christian worldview in a postmodern context, than they are asking whether Christianity is capable of assimilating and rising above the worst circumstances the world, writer, and life can throw at it. In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson tells a story of “forbidden love”, posed as a direct challenge to the prevailing way of knowing in her character’s community. In Gut Symmetries, she expands this challenge by employing the insights of quantum physics to make sense of the complexities raised by a triangular love relationship. Irving offers the story of Owen in A Prayer for Owen Meany as the kind of story which might possibly make a believer out of him; in short, that he would have to be a witness to some kind of miracle, something utterly inexplicable. In A Son of the Circus Irving narrates the quest for identity undertaken by an Indian doctor who is in every way a Displaced Person – the condition, he implies, of anyone who purports to find their piece of the truth. The theoretical concerns of the postmodern project are examined through Lawrence Cahoone’s argument that postmodern writing offers criticism of: presence, origin, unity and transcendence through an analytical strategy of constitutive otherness. In each of their texts, Irving and Winterson are seen to use these four critical elements and to offer a postmodern strategy of re-presenting meaning through “constitutive otherness”. Both writers also employ a strategy of historiographic metafiction (as defined by Linda Hutcheon) as a means of constructing and re-presenting their narrated stories. Postmodern paradox is compatible with what could be called a Christian plan for living, if the latter is in turn given an appropriate 1990s interpretation. The selected novels by Winterson and Irving are offered as contemporary evidence for this view. This thesis argues that the connection between postmodernism and other worldviews, particularly Christianity, is found in both projects’ process of making meanings through encounters with an other/Other.

This essay explores the adaptation process in ​The Gap of Time ​by Jeanette Winterson, a novel basedon​TheWinter’sTaleb​yWilliamShakespeare.Itisadiscussionandanalysisofthe novel; put in contrast to the play, and an exploration of the different emerging elements and themes in ​The Gap of Time.​ The most prevalent themes in the novel are abandonment, the power of jealousy, and alienation leading to self-invention. By exploring the novel in light of adaptation theories this essay will illustrate how Winterson exposes these themes. A comparative reading of the play and the novel makes it possible to discover various points in the plot where the adaptation process contributes to a different perspective on some of the characters in the story. In addition, the author has a personal connection to abandonment and loss due to being adopted as a child. This may also influence the narrative in the novel. Whilst jealousy is primarily focused upon in the play, the novel uses abandonment as its driving force instead, which is what this essay is focusing on. This in turn leads to self-invention as a tool to cope with loss, as expressed in the novel. Arguably there are other perspectives arising from the major themes, such as alienation and to some extent faith, which is also mentioned in this essay. In conclusion, the divergence between the novel and the play is fundamentally seen in character development. / Denna uppsats har för avsikt att utforska adaptionsprocessen i “The Gap of Time” av Jeanette Winterson som är en adaption av “The Winter’s Tale” av William Shakespeare. Det är en diskussion och analys av romanen, i jämförelse med pjäsen, samt ett utforskande av tematiska inslag i “The Gap of Time”. De mest allmänt förekommande inslagen är exempelvis övergivenhet, hur svartsjuka påverkar oss, samt främlingskap och självuppfyllande. Genom att utforska romanen i ljuset av olika adaptionsteorier så har uppsatsen som syfte att genomlysa hur Winterson fångar dessa olika tematiska inslag i sitt narrativ. En komparativ läsning av romanen och pjäsen gör det möjligt att upptäcka olika vändpunkter i berättandet som gör att läsaren får ett annat perspektiv på de olika karaktärerna. Det skall tilläggas att författaren har en personlig referens till övergivenhet eftersom hon själv är adopterad. Detta kan ha påverkat berättandet i romanen. Det drivande tematiska inslaget i pjäsen är svartsjuka, men i romanen är övergivenhet det som står i centrum, vilket denna uppsats främst handlar om. Detta i sin tur leder till självuppfyllande som ett verktyg för att hantera en förlust eller övergivenhet, vilket framgår i romanen. Min tes är att det också växer fram andra perspektiv ur de tematiska inslagen, så som främlingskap och religiös övertygelse, vilket också nämns i denna uppsats. Slutsatsen är att den grundläggande avvikelsen mellan romanen och pjäsen främst ses i förändringsprocessen hos de olika karaktärerna i berättelsen.

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Jeanette Winterson’s debut novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is regarded as an epitome of feminist fiction. The novel centres around Jeanette, a young homosexual girl, and her mother Louie who does not accept her daughter’s sexuality. Just like most mothers in feminist fiction Louie is described, by other scholars, as a one-dimensional character who forces normative femininity upon her daughter and defends patriarchal structures. However, this thesis argues that subtle instances of characterisation create tensions in Louie’s character, especially in regard to gender norms and heterosexual norms. Although Winterson’s novel has been explored from several perspectives most scholars focus on Jeanette. Few scholars have attempted to examine Louie and how she is characterised. Thus, Louie’s character is largely unexplored. To analyse Louie, Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan’s narratological theories on characterisation are used, such as characterisation through direct definitions, actions, and speech. By showing that Louie is marked by tensions she is characterised as a mother who both upholds and challenges patriarchal structures. Since Louie cannot only be perceived as an agent of the patriarchy, she is consequently a complex character.