Why is that the case?<\/p>\n
The very first line of\u00a0Written On the Body<\/em> by Jeanette Winterson is a question, reaching out to the reader asking, “Why is the measure of love loss?”. The speaker then spans into poetic prose, describing the dismal and unbecoming summer they have experienced. Upon first read, I was admittedly both intrigued and confused by this decision, but having finished the book, I can confidently say that Louis is dead, and that’s okay. And the reason why it’s alright, is because the trauma of her death is not restricted to just the speaker, but to us readers as well.<\/p>\n Based on textual evidence, I propose that the speaker, importantly ungendered and unnamed, uses their recountment of past relationships in order to process and grief Louis’s death. \u00a0The two places I will be pointing to most in the book itself are the first and last paragraphs, should you wish to refer to them yourself as well. I urge you to join me in analyzing these paragraphs, since they are some of the most complex and dense in the novel.<\/p>\n The ungendered nature of the main character in the novel, allows for the reader to envision themselves in the respective situations as the speaker. Essentially, this prevents any biased conclusions about the speakers experiences and views. Should the speaker claim to be a woman, men reading the book would feel excluded in some situations, and those who identify entirely differently would feel excluded from the start. Given this, the reader feels part of the speaker, because they can put themselves into their figurative shoes Throughout the novel, there are events that made me laugh (the closet incident) and that pulled at my heart strings all the same, and that effect would not be as dramatic if I identified the speaker with a gender.<\/p>\n Tying this in with the first and last paragraphs of the novel, I draw an importance in the speakers ambiguous identity and the relationship with the reader. Just as the novel begins with an implied You, it ends the same with an assumed unity by saying “I don\u2019t know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields”. The truth is, there is no ending to this story. Our speaker must continue through life after this novel is written, and so will we after reading it. However, grieving is a process that is tiresome. By losing a loved one, the speaker spirals in hopes to find answers, bringing us back to the first paragraph when they ask “You said, \u2018I love you.\u2019 Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear?” This novel can be read cyclically, the way grief is cyclical in nature, starting and ending looking for answers.<\/p>\n The question being, why is love measured by loss?<\/p>\n Your favorite crime,<\/p>\n Jay Walker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why is that the case? The very first line of\u00a0Written On the Body by Jeanette Winterson is a question, reaching out to the reader asking, “Why is the measure of love loss?”. The speaker then spans into poetic prose, describing the dismal and unbecoming summer they have experienced. Upon first read, I was admittedly both … Continue reading The Reason Why Love is Measured by Loss.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346798],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301","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\/5165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}