{"id":2023,"date":"2022-09-30T00:18:52","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T04:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=2023"},"modified":"2022-09-30T00:18:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T04:18:52","slug":"the-nature-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2022\/09\/30\/the-nature-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nature of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTime that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone,\u201d (Winterson 90). <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In her novel <\/span>Written on the Body<\/span><\/i>, Juliet Winterson consistently uses natural imagery to develop a sense of time within an otherwise non-linear text. In passages such as the one above, the narrator describes their relationship with Louise in terms of natural processes that represent the changing of time while also challenging the reader\u2019s understanding of normative temporality. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this passage, the narrator characterizes themself and Louise as fruit at the mercy of nature\u2019s whims. This comparison to objects incapable of autonomy creates a sense of passivity that is compounded by the verbs \u201cwither,\u201d \u201cfall,\u201d \u201croll,\u201d \u201clie,\u201d\u00a0\u201cwatching,\u201d and \u201ccovers\u201d (Winterson 90). Each of these verbs represent an action that is <\/span>happening<\/span><\/i> to the fruit, rather than ones the fruit\u00a0perform. In the narrator\u2019s phrasing \u201clet me lie beside you,\u201d they reveal that they are content with this passive existence. Simply spending time with their lover until the natural end of\u00a0their time on Earth is enough for them (Winterson 90).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This idea of a nonproductive \u2013 and nonreproductive \u2013 relationship challenges what Jack Halberstam refers to as \u201ca middle-class logic of reproductive temporality\u201d (Halberstam 4). Halberstam argues that\u00a0most people organize their lives around what are\u00a0perceived to be \u201cnatural and desirable\u201d schedules, which follow a logic based in reproductive timetables and societal expectations (Halberstam 5). It is considered natural that one marries, works, reproduces, and, eventually, dies. <\/span>Written on the Body <\/span><\/i>confronts these \u201cparadigmatic markers of life experience\u201d by representing the narrator\u2019s relationship with Louise through passive natural imagery, which makes room for \u201cqueer time\u201d (Halberstam 2, 1). Queer time, which opposes heterosexual understandings of family and reproduction, is present in this novel\u2019s nature imagery, non-linear timeline, and non-gendered narrator, each which \u201copen up new life narratives and alternative relations to time\u201d (Halberstam 2). The narrator\u2019s relationship with Louise <\/span>directly undermines heteronormative teleology by diverting her from the expected path of marriage and reproduction, and Louise\u2019s decision to choose the narrator over her husband subverts typical expectations for safety and health. These \u201calternative temporalities\u201d all draw from natural imagery within the book, which positions them as equally natural \u2013 or possibly even more so \u2013 than structured and normative understandings of time. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTime that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone,\u201d (Winterson 90). \u00a0 \u00a0 In her novel Written on the Body, Juliet Winterson consistently uses natural imagery … Continue reading The Nature of Time<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4998,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169404],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2022-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4998"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}