” This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The wall are exploding… Moon and stars are magnified in this room…. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm.” Page 190
The moon, stars, and the world are use as a metaphor to signify infinity between the love that the narrator has for Louise. It is the symbol of deep affection to a woman that has been victim of a sickness that eventually helped them become closer. When the narrator implies a new story, a new beginning, it might be the start of a new life for both the narrator and Louise.
Throughout the novel, the narrator portrays the image of self, when they repeatedly introduce the word “I”, in the first person perspective. By the end of the novel when the love between the narrator and Louise succeeds, the transition from “I” to “we” changes the image of both the narrator and the novel. My first impression was that this is the last draw for the narrator. Louise has finally come back and the narrator can’t waste any time objectifying her the way the narrator did throughout the novel. The new beginning for Louise and the narrator is no longer based on “I” or “you” but rather “we”, the two of them together not one more important than the other.
Furthermore, maybe the way the novel ended represents the novel as a whole. I like the fact that it leaves the reader to construct his/her own ending in a number of ways. There is no certainty as to what happens, the only certainty we have is that for the narrator “this is where the story starts” (190). Thinking in this train of thought, could it be that this was the case during the entire novel? Not only was the ending an opportunity for the reader to construct their own thoughts, but in a way the entire novel falls into the same gap. This might be crazy talk, but as readers we were given the opportunity to decide whether or not the narrator was male or female, or perhaps the idea of a genderless narrator is what pulled us through the novel. Either way, we construct our own hypothesis while the narrator only provided the reader with evidence and support.
Winterson, Jeanette. Written On The Body. 1992. New York, NY: Vintage
I really like that you picked this quote. It could have so many different meanings. You said that this “new beginning” could be the start of a new life for the narrator and Louse. Do you mean an afterlife? Because by having stars and and the moon in this quote could mean that they are in the sky. Or do you mean a new start to their relationship if they were to put everything behind them? Be specific in this interpretation.
I think that this is a really interesting place to look in the book. I like how you address the fact that the book is left rather open-ended. That now it’s up to the reader to figure out how to measure love. Maybe Winterson took us off the path of normative ideas of love, directed us in another direction, and now the “story is starting”. The abrupt change, and almost out of body experience in this passage characterizes this novel as more interpretive than we may have predicted.
Thank you Yeezy for this interpretation of the text. Your comment about the novel leaving the readers to construct their own ending is very real. Reading over you post I noticed similarities within the reading for this coming class in Queer Temporality and Postmodern Geographies. On pages 6-7 there is a discussion from Harvey’s, The Condition of Postmodernity and in this discussion we read that “time/space” are a construction. You’re not crazy in your thinking, your mention of infinity is reinforced insofar as to say that time is not of the essence and now has imploded.
I really enjoyed your analysis on this quote, the “I” to “We” is something that I didn’t notice and now after reading your blog post, I find it very interesting. I found this so interesting because I also wrote about people changing and how I thought that was a theme that should be taken from this novel. We also interpreted the ending in the same kind of way because I did not think it was them dying, I really believed they reunited. You said that you thought that making us guess the gender helped pull us through the novel, but sometimes I felt it distracted me. This is because I wanted to know, so I could be able to paint a picture in my head as I was reading the novel.