Category: Fall 2016

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful and brilliant princess, so sensitive that the death of a moth could distress her for weeks…” (Pg. 9)

In the readings thus far, one passage that has stuck out to me has been the parable of the sensitive princess. In chapter 1, Genesis, Jeannette tells the story of an incredibly compassionate princess who is, for the most part, tethered to her kingdom and becomes distressed by something as simple as the death of a moth. For this reason, her whole kingdom worries for her until one day she finds an old hunchback woman who is dying. The hunchback women asks her to take care of a certain list of duties and the Princess obliges. When the hunchback woman dies, the princess abides by her promise and is never bothered by her excessive sensitivity again.

This is a story that I felt accurately paralleled the childhood of Jeanette. In my interpretation, the princess is a perfect representation of innocence. As a youth, Jeanette mirrors this innocence in her ignorance of her own sexual orientation. Living a life skewed and sheltered by her mother’s extreme religiosity, Jeanette know’s nothing but what is considered right by the church. In the same way that the princess is restricted by her self-imposed fear, Jeanette is limited by her mother’s overbearing and manipulative. Although she is ultimately able to break free from the major restrictions set by her mother and church later in life, until her freedom Jeanette exemplifies innocence in a life manipulated by her mother and religion. Another, more literal, parallel exists in the distress that the princess feels. Though not to the extent of the anxious princess, Jeanette’s internal conflict of natural instinct versus her mother’s will leads to her living a very confusing and stressful childhood. Lastly, and perhaps most important the way that the princess is able to alleviate her distress is paralleled by an unsuccessful attempt of coping by Jeanette. Unlike the princess, who successfully escapes her restrictions through finding where she belongs, Jeannette seeks to find where she belongs through accepting the manipulation by her mother. Thus, Jeanette attempts to overcome her limits by accepting the cause of them.

 

“But somewhere in the night I stretched out to her and kissed her until we were both sweating and crying with mixed bodies and swollen faces” (Winterson, 111-112).

 

Intimacy, the intimacy of two people whose love is not found for approval is being separated. Separated through exorcisms and repenting to a lord that is only shaped through different modifications in a devout Christian religion. “The night” is this representation of when only the love, eroticism, and intimacy can exist between that of Melanie and Jeanette. “The night” is where emotions can run rampant, a place where darkness is a part of life for existence. The sweating and perspiring from their bodies and the emotions that trigger water to trickle down their cheeks is not just the intimacy that they have for each other; it is the agony that has culminated between them. The love is something so sinful and shameful in their church that it dismantles the love that could continue to be between them. The love has the potential to still be there and always maintain a stasis between them, but it can never again be an overt being within their lives. Love has overtly eradicated their life as people – as “holy” people.

There “mixed bodies and swollen faces” is in a literal sense their bodies entwined with each other, “faces swollen” because of the pain that is soon yet to come as the sun rises. However their “mixed bodies and swollen faces” further represent the idea that their bodies are not linear beings to the community bodies around, although parallel to each other, they are incongruent to the bible. Their “swollen faces” are still the same however; they are representative of the emotion. Not just the emotion that is transparent between Melanie and Jeanette but their swollen faces represents the tribulation, the shame that they have had to take on because a part of themselves is so neglected from a community that prides themselves as being holistic to a god.

Pushing further, what is this to say about the novel itself? I am making the claim that in certain instances intimacy is sinful, something that can be profound. Intimacy is something that we long for, and we want to feel it, and bask in it. However every intimate relationship is compensated for practicality, for religion, for a perceived conception of what life should be. Although Melanie and Jeannette’s love is deviant it is also true. The falsity that exists around them wants to dismantle this not because it is between two women but because it is that of love. Practicality is the outline of this novel and love is what is trying to exist between the lines.

“In the spring, the ground still had spaces of snow…It wasn’t fair that the whole street should be filled with beasts.” (p. 71- 73)

In the beginning of the passage, which serves as the opener for the “Numbers” section of Jeanette Winters novel, Jeannette describes a reoccurring dream—perhaps more accurately described as a nightmare—in which she is walking down the aisle to marry a man. As she progresses down the aisle, her observations begin to become more and more fantastical and peculiar, such that the priest gets increasingly fat while her groom remains anything but husband material, presenting himself in various forms: as blind, or her mother, or as not even human. She also feels progressively more “weighed down” as she walks down the aisle, to the point where it becomes unbearable. I think this dream foreshadows Winterson’s ultimate coming out as it indicates her developing sense of misalignment with the future her mother (and society) has imagined and prepared her for. Jeanette is expressing her fear of being blindly forced into a narrative for which she is not inclined; one she does not feel is truly her own.

Further in the passage, Winterson’s reflection upon her dream leads to certain self-realizations and causes her to question the society she lives in, as if she has gained some new perspective that everyone else seems blind to. She questions the norms she has been socialized to, as “everyone always said you found the right man…but there was the problem of the woman married to the pig, and the spotty boy who took girls down backs, and [her] dream” (p. 72). She expresses a level of incredulity at the fact that, either everyone around her knew men were pigs and beasts, and simply chose to ignore that fact while keeping Winterson in the dark, or they were all simply unaware of the horrible paradigm in which women marry beasts and hope that, with enough kisses, they’ll turn into a prince. She calls it a “conspiracy” that, perhaps, “…all over the globe, in all innocence, women were marrying beasts” (p. 73). She comes to this conclusion after reading “The Beauty and the Beast,” and it is at this point she begins forming her opinion that this conspiracy is a narrative she does not long to be a part of.

I believe this passage represents the prerequisite internal conflict many individuals undergo prior to and throughout the process of forming their own understanding of their sexual identity prior to coming out. It is similar in theme to what was described in many of the videos from the “It Gets Better Project,” in which the individual begins to recognize the misalignment of their own narrative with that of society—spurred by the knowledge that they always had felt different, until they eventually worked out what that difference was.

 

“Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don’t believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like a string full of knots.” (93)
I chose this passage because I think it illustrates all of Winterson’s thoughts about the way that she was told to grow up, and the way that she is now experiencing life. The first line had a big impact because it reminds us how everyone is going to experience life differently, but it is their life and they live the way they do because of their material experiences. Two people could be reading the same scripture from the bible, but the impact and interpretation of the scripture might be completely different between the two people. I also think that this line could be Winterson calling out all the people who judged her throughout her lifetime. She was just trying to live her life and experience different things to be able to tell her story, but she was not able to do that because of all the other people pushing their thoughts and beliefs onto her. The second sentence also combats all the ideologies that she has been forced to conform to her entire life. If things are not able to be  scientifically proven, people do not believe that it truly exists. This is the argument for so many things that are seen as taboo within society, especially when it comes to sexuality. It reminds me of the idea that people have about queer people choosing to be queer versus being born as who they are. Because there is no formula or test to prove that you are born queer, people disregard it as a valuable identity. Winterson lives life as a queer person so she knows that this in fact is not a choice, but it is who she was born as, and this personal lived experiences are why she said, “I don’t believe them.” As Winterson grew and began to learn on her own she saw that everything that seem black and white, right or wrong, was much more complicated than that. Identities specifically are so nuanced that you can never compartmentalize a human being. This passage connects to the books a whole because it shows the transition that Winterson makes in her life from internalizing all of the negative things she has been told, to really understanding her experiences within life and how complicated yet valid they are because it is her life.

“She had never heard of mixed feelings. There were friends and there were enemies.” – Winterson Pg. 1

This quote by Jeanette is used to describe her mother. Jeanette’s mother sees the world in black and white with nothing in between. There are people she sees as good (friends) and people she see as bad (enemies). For her there is nothing in between. People are either holy or evil. In the eyes of Jeanette’s mother, one cannot be good if they are non-religious. These views have been deeply instilled into Jeanette.

Further on in the novel the reader realizes that Jeanette does not fall into her mother’s black and white views. Yes, Jeanette loves God and goes to church religiously but she falls into middle ground since she is a lesbian. Unfortunately, there is no middle ground for Jeanette’s mother. Since Jeanette is a lesbian she must be deemed evil.

This quote from the novel foreshadows the plot of the novel. It shows the problems that Jeanette will have with her mother and her mother’s views. Since Jeanette is in the middle ground she will be kicked out of her house for being a lesbian. In her mother’s eyes, she will not exist.

This has a tremendous impact on Jeanette. It allows her to take a step back and question everything that has been instilled into her. She questions whether or not she can still be a good person since she loves women. Winterson uses this quote to suggest that in life there is no such thing as “black” and “white”. There is a spectrum, room for fluidness.

“I did remember, but what my mother didn’t know was that I now knew she had rewritten the ending… I have never since played cards, and I have never since read Jane Eyre.” (Winterson 74)

When reading this paragraph, there are a lot of different interpretations that one can have regarding Jeanette’s life.  This moment, where she discovers her mother has manipulated the end of Jane Eyre and she finds her adoption papers, are both defining moments in her life and within her search for an identity.  These two pillars are essential to the identity that Jeanette has established with herself.  To then find out later in life that not only did her mother rewrite the ending of a book they had read throughout her childhood and that she was not actually her mother’s birth daughter, were devastating losses that made Jeanette question who she was if she did not have both of those elements to define her.  This destruction of ideals for Jeanette makes her questions everything she was brought up to believe. She says in the passage after this quote that she no longer knows where to look for the information that she craves (Winterson 75).  This is essential to her discovery of who she will become, because Jeanette now realizes that not only is it possible for her to find answers outside of her mother’s word, it is imperative that she looks elsewhere to find her truth.

An important factor that is revealing here is what the real narrative of Jane Eyre teaches Jeanette when she discovers the real ending.  This allegory is extremely critical to Jeanette’s mindset changing because when she discovers that Jane does not marry St. John, which her mother had written, Jeanette realizes that all stories do not always in the way that other people deem is right, which is a turning moment in the question of Jeanette’s identity.

pg 72 “Everyone always said you found the right man. my mother said it, which was confusing. My auntie said it, which was even more confusing.” -Jeanette Winterson

 

This passage encompasses one of the greatest conflicts in most coming-out stories, which is the reaction of one’s family. In this case, a super religious family is hell-bent on the idea that Jeanette is straight and aspires to marry. Knowing that a family has such expectations will keep one from coming out for the simple fact that revealing the true identity could result in strained relationships and even homelessness, not to mention self-loathing. Jeanette, in this passage, is both confused and discouraged as while she feels she is gay, she is afraid of what her family will think and how they will react. Judging by the language used, specifically referring to how auntie was “even more confusing,” it is obvious Jeanette cares more deeply about her family’s perception of her, specifically her aunt, than the material punishments.

This passage has a lot of significance within it. The sentence specifically, “and I have never since read Jane Eyre” has a lot of meaning. This sentence signifies how Jane is hiding from the reality of what she has just discovered. Once Jeanette went to the library and read the story for herself, was the moment she became an individual. This was the first thing Jeanette did for herself and realized her mother was not who she thought she was. Jane Eyre is a reminder of a time where she had a much simpler life. She wasn’t yet faced with diversity or with the idea that her mother was not who she thought she was. The book symbolizes Jeanette’s relationship with her mother. Her mother manipulated the ending of the book, the way she was manipulating Jeanette to think. All of her life, Jeanette valued her mothers opinion over anything else. This effects Jeanette’s coming out story because it shows how timid she is and how naive she is to all of her new findings. She does not know how to think or how to act without the guidance of her mother. She now needs to make her own path, one that was not created by her mother. I think Jeanette fears this unknown path. She is scared of all of the twists and turns she will have to face on her own. This is a time where Jeanette needs to find the ability to be proud of who she is and make decisions for herself. I think by not reading Jane Eyre, she has not yet found that courage to do so.

“She stroked my head for a long time, and then we hugged and it felt like drowning. Then I was frightened but couldn’t stop” (pg 88-89)

This passage talks about the feelings/actions that Jeanette has with Melanie. Her feelings are overwhelming and take over her suddenly. This is revealed by her use of the words “drowning”, “frightened but couldn’t stop”, and “crawling in my belly”. Jeanette definitely feels something and even questions Melanie later on if it is an “Unnatural Passion”. The feeling and language imply an attraction between Jeanette and Melanie. The passage helps to tell the coming out story because it shows the early/young feeling of attraction Jeanette had to girls. Often in coming out stories people talk about how “they always were different” or “always knew”. This language implies that she has always been a lesbian. This is a common counter-argument that LGBT tends to use when people claim that being queer is a “decision”. Even her mother and pastor believe that she may be a “wicked person” and decided to be attracted to women, “It was my own fault. My own perversity. They started arguing between themselves about whether I was an unfortunate victim or a wicked person” (pg 131). The idea that people decide to “sin” is difficult to argue because it is ridiculous to believe that someone would choose to have a life that entails so much discrimination and prejudice. What I’m really trying to say is that no one made or enticed Jeanette to be a lesbian. She always has been and we can see that from her towards men and her attraction to Melanie.

 

“Round and round he walked, and so learned a very valuable thing:
That no emotion is the final one” (Winterson, 52)

In the book of Exodus, the Israelites leave Egypt where they were enslaved and wander the desert to find the chosen land. In the last paragraphs of the Exodus Chapter, Jeanette’s story represents how she leaves her own mother’s expectations. Jeanette describes two shapes in her made up story: (1) a 3-dimensional tetrahedron and (2) a 1- dimensional isosceles triangle. The first represents herself, while the later represents her evil mother. A tetrahedron can be made with different materials. For instance, we read about Jeanette making a tetrahedron with rubber bands but I realized that someone can also make that shape by stacking oranges. Even though oranges may be the easiest to stack due to their symmetrical nature, apples, though more difficult, can also be stacked. This is consistent with the theme of the novel; oranges are not the limiting factor in building a tetrahedron, other factors can be manipulated to have the same result. The geometrical shapes allude to the characters that they represent. While Jeanette’s Mom only sees through her own perspective and stays in 1-dimension like an isosceles triangle, we see the many tetrahedron faces of Jeanette throughout her novel.

This three-dimensionality is illustrated through Jeanette’s curiosity and imagination. In her fairytale, the Tetrahedron received a gift of midgets. The midgets acted out different plays while the Tetrahedron walked around. As the Tetrahedron walked around he noticed “that no emotion is the final one” (Winterson, 52). The midgets represent the stories that Jeanette has been told her entire life. In her narrative, she speaks through biblical stories because all she knows are these stories, and therefore the bible parallels the script of her own upbringing. “No emotion” means that that script is up for interpretation. Ultimately, this shows that there is a piece is her life that is undetermined and blank which defies the boundaries that are written out for her by her mother and the church.