\u201cI realized I was meant to be clapping in time with the beat and I remembered another piece of advice from my grandmother. \u2018When in the jungle you howl with the wolves.\u2019 I slapped a plastic grin on my face like a server at McDonald\u2019s and pretended to be having a good time\u201d (153)<\/p>\n
The repetitive phrasing in this passage clearly stresses a moment of impact for the narrator. By emphasizing \u201cI realized\u2026I remembered\u2026 I slapped\u201d the\u00a0narrator transitions the audience through a period of self-realization that culminates in a moment of sharp pain. This pain takes the metaphorical form of a false identity where discomfort gets masked by a \u201cplastic\u201d smile. To use the word plastic is to suggest the most synthetic, artificial form of contentment. The narrator exposes additional paradoxes by contrasting \u201cclapping in time\u201d and \u201chowling in the wild\u201d. To clap in time is an organized motion typically done in establishments of civility. This passage demonstrates irony when the narrator cannot genuinely follow through on this motion while in the utmost pillar of civil integrity, a church. Instead, they feel as though they are among a foreign species, forced to assimilate like a lone wolf approaching a pack.<\/p>\n
Up to this point, the narrator has been seen existing in a unique environment that is isolated from common laws of morality. They engage in sexual relations with married women and partners of both gender. In this passage, a church outing that has been normalized for stereotypical, heterosexual Caucasians is turned into a jungle of uncertainty.<\/p>\n
The overwhelming presence of homogenized expectations in this passage are very similar to the Christmas Effects in Sedgwick\u2019s article. In society, the mixture of church, state, and commercial industry leads to an atmosphere of isolation for those who fall outside of society\u2019s predetermined categories. When the narrator attends church, a supposed sanctuary for outcasts, they are swept up in unfamiliarity and discomfort. This paradox\u00a0speaks volumes to the novel\u2019s intended message. Nonconforming identities, behaviors, and sexual preferences are normative for the people who live them. Society takes those who do not align with man-made constructions of normality and makes them feel as though they are lost in a jungle, scrambling to blend with the rest of the pack. By writing this novel, Jeanette Winterson fights this battle. Not all identities are defined, not all relationships are monogamous, and not all love is clean cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI realized I was meant to be clapping in time with the beat and I remembered another piece of advice from my grandmother. \u2018When in the jungle you howl with the wolves.\u2019 I slapped a plastic grin on my face like a server at McDonald\u2019s and pretended to be having a good time\u201d (153) The … Continue reading Church: A Refuge for the Normative<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846","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\/3020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}