“She doesn’t know this yet. She doesn’t know that here is today a revision of the map. That the territory she thought was hers has been annexed. You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time. If it were not so how could we take it back without asking?” (Winterson, 38)
This part in the novel comes when the narrator is thinking of possibly breaking up with Jacqueline. The narrator has a new relationship with Louise, a frenzy of a woman, and decides they want to leave the stability Jacquelin provides and into the chaos of Louise. The passage discusses a lot about cognition, “know” and “thought.” I think this is to portray the subjectivity of Jacqueline. The repetition of “she doesn’t know” serves to establish a relationship of miscommunication, of doing something without the other knowing. There is also a lot about borrowing, “lend’ and “take it back,” conveying a sense of transience in the agreement between Jacqueline and the narrator. The aspect of the passage that jumps out to me the most is the conceptualizing of bodies as territory, that can be conquered or liberated. The novel takes place in Britain, a country with a huge legacy of colonialism, that often “[made revisions] of the map” and “annexed” land. Often without the permission of the people there. In literature surrounding colonialism, the colonized country was often seen as female, virginal, fertile, and pure. I think metaphors like this serve to justify colonialism, like the country doesn’t know how to take of itself. I think the reclamation of the narrator’s body is interesting, because colonized countries so often do not succeed in overthrowing oppressive regimes, except for the Haitian Revolution, a really cool point in history that definitely does not get enough attention or love. I also wonder the implications surrounding Jacqueline, is she taking this body without the narrator’s permission? Does she have a white savior complex? Going back to the concept of colonialism, in certain African countries, not to generalize, the land is seen as communal, owned by the tribe. So when European countries came to Africa, they thought the land was theirs because of various treaties and a nice sense of entitlement. When the Africans tried to take the land back, they were overpowered and could not succeed. African people did not stay very long in a certain place, due to nomadic traditions. They viewed the land as temporary rather than fixed. Maybe the narrator views their body in the same way. The narrator has had many lovers throughout their life; they may not be able to stay with one person forever. They may have a polyamorous identity. The narrator is consistently “lend”ing their heart “from time to time.” They may view their body as a constantly changing thing, untethered, and definitely not fixed. I think this also may connect to the narrator’s conception of gender; maybe they identify as genderfluid. The conceptualizing of the body as a land mass also reminded me of Borderlands: La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa (the academic text that has most profoundly impacted me). In it, Anzaldúa questions her experience as a queer, Xican@ feminist. Growing up near the Texas-Mexico border, she conceptualizes the borders of her body and relates them to her identity. Where are the borders on the narrator’s body? “Annex” also reminds me of the Mexican Cession, an action which dramatically altered the lives of people like Anzaldúa’s relatives. There, they lived in a sort of middle ground where they had lived in “America” their whole lives but did not speak English (even though we don’t have an official language) and were not recognized as upstanding American citizens. Does Jacqueline exist in the middle ground, left heartbroken after this “annex”? Anzaldúa also stresses how borders exist socially as well, a separators of the accepted and the deviant. As a serial adulterer, the narrator is the deviant, on the wrong side of the border. This also relates to Michael Warner’s conceptions of sexual shame, “hierarchies of sex sometimes serve no real purpose except to prevent sexual variance” (25). The only reason the narrator experiences shame for being in relationships with married women is because that is not considered the norm. Ergo, their actions must be controlled and regulated, much like Anzaldúa’s queer and Xican@ identities. Various characters in the novel control the narrator’s border and they was to reclaim the land that is rightfully theirs. Relating a body to a land mass definitely has a lot of cultural implications and engages a lot of different texts.