“I still wanted her to be the leader of our expedition. Why did I find it hard to accept that we were equally sunk? Sunk in each other? Destiny is a worrying concept. I don’t want to be fated, I want to choose” (Winterson, 91).
The narrator offers these thoughts during their tenuous coexistence with Louise and Elgin, when Louise is still trying to balance her loyalty between her husband and her affair. A confusing time for our narrator, they express in this passage a lack of stability and a desire for some semblance of control. The narrator wants Louise, for example, to “be the leader of [their] expedition,” acknowledging that the two of them are attempting a feat together and that someone needs to take charge of its success. Even more anxiety is expressed through the feeling of being “sunk,” which the narrator experiences so strongly that they state it twice. To be “sunk” is to be forced to stagnate, to be trapped without option for progression or change—or even a way out. This is clearly not a desirable state for our control-seeking narrator, even if it is with Louise.
“Destiny is a worrying concept” for our narrator because they cannot exert control over it, and neither can their beloved Louise. For what good is Louise as an expedition leader if fate has already dictated that their expedition should fail? Here the narrator makes explicit their opposition to being “sunk,” claiming that they “want to choose” their path instead of being manipulated by their potential fate. This opposition of destiny and choice is especially powerful here because of how the narrator seeks choice through Louise; they do not “want to be fated” but they still want Louise to lead, like they want to exert control but only some. It is as though the narrator is uncomfortable with their lack of stability and also feels incapable of accepting the responsibility of choice.
The narrator’s struggle for control is reflected in the novel as a whole, primarily through the non-linear mode of storytelling. The narrator guides us from one scene to another, one relationship to another, offering hints about how each piece fits into the greater story but ultimately revealing only what they deem relevant. The narrator exerts control by telling the story exactly how they desire, but in doing so they forfeit the ability to dictate all of the details (such as the narrator’s gender.) Because the narrator only offers specific pieces of the story for examination, we iare left, much like Louise, to “lead the expedition” and draw our own conclusions, to make decisions on our behalf and the narrator’s.