{"id":406,"date":"2015-02-11T22:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T03:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=406"},"modified":"2015-02-11T22:00:43","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T03:00:43","slug":"choice-as-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2015\/02\/11\/choice-as-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Choice as Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI 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\u2019t want to be fated, I want to choose” (Winterson, 91).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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 \u201cbe the leader of [their] expedition,\u201d 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 \u201csunk,\u201d which the narrator experiences so strongly that they state it twice. To be \u201csunk\u201d is to be forced to stagnate, to be trapped without option for progression or change\u2014or even a way out. This is clearly not a desirable state for our control-seeking narrator, even if it is with Louise.<\/p>\n

\u201cDestiny is a worrying concept\u201d 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 \u201csunk,\u201d claiming that they \u201cwant to choose\u201d 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 \u201cwant to be fated\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The narrator\u2019s 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\u2019s gender.) Because the narrator only offers specific pieces of the story for examination, we iare left, much like Louise, to \u201clead the expedition\u201d and draw our own conclusions, to make decisions on our behalf and the narrator\u2019s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI 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\u2019t want to be fated, I want to choose” (Winterson, 91). The narrator offers these thoughts during their tenuous coexistence with … Continue reading Choice as Control<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2611,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93618],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","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\/2611"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}