History as a discourse in Jeanette Winterson's "The passion" : the politics of alterity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.54Abstract
Set in the historical context of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, Jeanette Winterson's The Passion is an outstanding example of the kind of fiction that Elizabeth Wesseling (1991: vii) calls postmodernist historical novels, that is, "novelistic adaptations of historical material". Besides, being profoundly self-reflexive, the novel also falls under Linda Hutcheon's (1988) category of historiographic metafiction. The present paper focuses on Winterson's political choice of two representatives of historically silenced groups, a soldier and a woman, who use two apparently opposed narrative modes, the historical and the fantastic, to tell a story that both exposes history as a discursive construct and provides an alternative fantastic discourse for the representation of feminine desire.Downloads
References
Asensio Aróstegui, M. 1994. “Written Narration Versus Oral Storytelling in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion”. Actas del XVIII Congreso de AEDEAN. Eds. R. J. Sola, L. A. Lázaro y J. A. Gurpegui. Alcalá de Henares: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alcalá. 459-464.
Asensio Aróstegui, M. 1996. “Subversion of Sexual Identity in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion”. Gender I-deology: Essays on Theory, Fiction and Film. Eds. C. Cornut- Gentille D’Arcy and J.A. García Landa. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 265-279.
Bal, M. 1985 (1980). Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. Trans. C. van Boheemen.
Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London and New York: Routledge.
Cornwell, N. 1990. The Literary Fantastic: From Gothic to Postmodernism. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Doan, L. 1994. “Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Postmodern”. The Lesbian Postmodern. Ed. L. Doan. New York: Columbia University Press. 137-55.
Ermarth, E. 1992. Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Grosz, E. 1994. “Refiguring Lesbian Desire”. The Lesbian Postmodern. Ed. L. Doan.
New York: Columbia University Press. 67-84.
Hume, K. 1984. Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature. New York and London: Methuen.
Hutcheon, L. 1988. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge.
Jackson, R. 1981. Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. New York and London: Methuen.
Onega, S. 1995. “‘I’m Telling You Stories. Trust Me’: History/Storytelling in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.”. Telling Histories: Narrativizing History, Historicizing Literature. Ed. S. Onega. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 135-147.
Onega, S. 1996. “The Passion: Jeanete Winterson’s Uncanny Mirror of Ink”. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 30: 113-129.
Roof, J. 1994. “Lesbians and Lyotard: Legitimation and the Politics of the Name”. The Lesbian Postmodern. Ed. L. Doan. New York: Columbia University Press. 47-66.
Rowe, K. E. 1979. “Feminism and Fairy Tales”. Women Studies 6: 237-57.
Wesseling, E. 1991. Writing History as a Prophet. Postmodernist Innovations of the Historical Novel. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Winterson, J. 1988 (1987). The Passion. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Winterson, J. 1991 (1985). Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. London: Vintage.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors retain copyright of articles and authorize Journal of English Studies the first publication. They are free to share, redistribute, and/or reprint the article without obtaining permission from the publisher as long as they give appropriate credit to the editor and the journal.
Self-archiving is allowed too. In fact, it is recommendable to deposit a PDF version of the paper in academic and/or institutional repositories.
It is recommended to include the DOI number.
This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
