Author: Riley

I think that Written on the Body is an excellent example of how gender is ascribed to different actions and how gender is not real. Judith Butler wrote, “If the inner truth of gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy instituted and inscribed on the surface of bodies, then it seems that genders can be neither true nor false, but are only produced as the truth effects of a discourse of primary and stable identity” (Butler 136). This passage tells me that it is really society and the norms of the time that create gender, gender does not create society’s trends because without those decisions or pressures, there would actually be no gender. It is the actual acts that denote gender, not the bodies. One of the important parts here is the “effects of a discourse” because gender changes and appears differently through time, it has to fit in with the current standard. 

While reading, Written on the Body by Jeannette Winterson, everyone in class had different ideas of the gender of our narrator. We wanted so badly to attribute a gender to the narrator because of certain actions they committed. If we read Written on the Body through a male lens, then it would be a very different book then if it was read through a female one. Winterson chose to make it ambiguous to challenge these ideas of societal norms that we have.

The moment that stuck out to me the most was when the Narrator hits Jacqueline. “She’d angered me and I responded by thumping her. How many times does that turn up in the courts? How many times have I curled up my lip at other people’s violence?” (Winterson 87). While this is not about gender explicitly, as a society, we have the image of domestic violence in our heads as a man hitting a woman. I think the text even leans into that by mentioning the courts and how they are disgusted by the same situation in others. The part that plays into Butler’s theory is that the “discourse” around domestic violence is that the violence is a masculine trait whereas being the one hit or hurt is more feminine. The part that matters is the conversations happening around the action to make it gendered. This of course doesn’t make it right, but it does complicate our reading of the gender of the narrator.

“Mala wished that she could go back in time and be a friend to this Pohpoh. She would storm into the house and, with one flick of her wrist, banish the father into a pit of pain and suffering from which there would be no escape. With piercing eyes she would pull the walls of that house down, down, down, and she would gather the two children to her breast and hug them tightly, rock and quiet them, and kiss their faces until they giggled wildly.” (Mootoo 142)

One of the key themes throughout Cereus Blooms at Night, are names and who calls who what and who has the power to change their name. In this passage, the reader gets Mala and Pohpoh and Mala interacts with these two as if they were two completely different people. In his transcription of what Mala is saying and relaying to him, Tyler treats them as two different entities. At this point, the reader knows that Mala is Pohpoh. Pohpoh is just Mala as a child. We learn later on why Mala changes her name, “Pohpoh was what her father had lovingly called her since she was a baby, long before the crisis in the family” (200). She decided to change it because she could not stand what the nickname had turned into, something he called her while abusing her. I think Mala is the identity that she came up with to retake her power and the part of herself that she identifies as strong. Pohpoh is the little girl that had to protect her sister, and watched her mother leave, but Mala is the woman who had to watch out for herself. Mala only changes her name after Asha leaves and she is no longer her responsibility, her priority can now switch to protection of herself. 

Something that is similar to this name change is how Boyie turns into Ambrose. When Ambrose comes back to Paradise, Lantanacamara he is now referred to as Ambrose, not Boyie. There is a whole scene where Mala does not know what to call him,  starting with being very formal “Mr. Mohanty” until Ambrose asks her to just call him Ambrose (197). We do not get a reason as to why Ambrose changes his name, we just know he has shed his boyish nickname to something more formal and grown up. It signals a new stage in their relationship, one that is inherently more adult. Both of these name changes signal the end of their childhood and the acceptance of adulthood.

“​​And for many, this is as much intimacy as they’ll be able to find. The closest they can be to their respective islands, the safest they can feel in public holding another man. What is longing and systemic oppression when you have the dance floor?…

‘It’s not Spanish.’ It is a reflex, to correct him. He feels dread rising as soon as he does so but can’t stop himself from talking. ‘It’s Latino if you’re speaking generally; Dominican, Puerto Rican, whatever, if you want to be specific.’”

 

I think in this passage, it is talking about the connection that people feel with each other, the unification of the dance floor. But the author makes sure to remind the reader that just because they come together as one to dance, they are not a ‘they.’ Each person or music has its own traditions and culture behind them. This passage reminds me of the movie, Dirty Dancing. In the movie they use dancing as a metaphor for freedom and its ability to unite people over their social differences. 

Even in this space where they feel safe, there are people who still enter it and act like they are in charge, that they are the ones who run the show. This person is clearly an outsider, perhaps not in regards to sexuality, but in regards to race. Eli Clare talks about how a person is extremely intersectional, how you can not separate your identity because each facet impacts the others. I think this passage is an example of that phenomenon. Sal is both Latin and queer. He is finding identity with others on this dance floor because they share common roots or identities. But there are also subcategories, for lack of a better term, to being Latin.

I connected these two passages because I think it links the systemic oppression that he is talking about in the first quote and portrays it in the form of ignorance. The fact that he notes, “he can’t stop himself from talking” and the “dread rising” signals to me that this is a conversation that he has had to have before. As a result of the systemic oppression, people are ignorant to the other cultures around them. This space that he has deemed safe and a place where people can be themselves, the outside world can still infiltrate even the most sacred spaces for people. It speaks to how pervasive and complete oppression is in everyday life.

“Elgin and Louise no longer made love. She took the spunk out of him now and again but she refused to have him inside her. Elgin accepted this was part of their deal and Louise knew he used prostitutes. His proclivities would have made that inevitable even in a more traditional marriage. His present hobby was to fly up to Scotland and be sunk in a bath of porridge while a couple of Celtic geishas rubber-gloved his prick” (68).

 

Winterson uses the terms “made love” and “took the spunk out of him” here instead of sex. The two phrases speak to the state of their marriage at this point in the book and have two very different connotations. Instead of “making love,” something that is viewed as very tender, something a husband and wife do or, at least, what two people who love each other do. However, she takes “the spunk out of him.” This seems transactional and like Louise is sucking the soul out of Elgin. He can no longer be entirely himself, she brings him down. The phrasing makes it seem like Louise is taming Elgin, just giving in to complete a task because she has to because they are still technically married. Marriage, culturally, is understood to include sex and especially in the past, it is the wife’s job to please her husband. 

Like we talked about in class though, this sets up the idea that they already have a set “deal.” The wording implies that they already have discussed sex outside of marriage so the same deal for Elgin would theoretically apply to Louise in the fact that she can also have sex outside of marriage. However, later on, we find out that Elgin is not as okay with this as he originally let on. The difference, however, between Elgin’s use of prostitutes and Louise with our narrator seems to be the emotional aspect of the affair. Elgin won’t even let the sex workers see him naked, but Louise is implying that Elgin is into “untraditional” sex practices that she wouldn’t want to perform so therefore it is necessary for him to be with a prostitute. I think it is this passage that sets up the irony of him being upset at Louise for having an affair, though the circumstances are slightly different, it applies nonetheless. 

I think the important part of this excerpt though, is the fact that she “refused to have him inside her.” Sex is defined culturally as penetrative sex, everything else is considered an ‘other’ form of sex, but true sex itself is penetrative (according to society and cultural expectations). I don’t think this is the exact thing Winterson is trying to get at. I think she is still considering them having sex, however I think she is making a sexual hierarchy. Some acts are considered more intense/personal than others, they are worth more in the long run. By not letting Elgin enter Louise, she is keeping their marriage at surface level and almost disassociating from the act and, maybe in her mind, they aren’t actually having sex. Although it is a sexual act, society stereotypically only defines sex as the traditional way. Louise has set the boundary that once Elgin is “inside her” that is the ultimate form of sex, and right now, she is just getting by by performing sexual acts to complete her ‘duties’ as a wife. However, she is only fulfilling her ‘duties’ as a wife in the sense that she is giving her husband pleasure, not (in the very traditional sense) by making it possible to have a baby. 

The reader does not know what type of sex the narrator and Louise are having but it is set up to appear to be a much more intimate experience. Maybe Winterson might be trying to portray is that sex is ‘worth’ more when there is an emotional connection which was absent with Elgin. She is only performing sexual acts, not what society seems true sex, so that it isn’t ‘worth’ as much, it doesn’t matter as much.