For class we’re staring almost halfway into Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body, and we were given the general background of what is about. I think it’s interesting to have a protagonist whose gender is unknown, but then I also think it was a little difficult to grasp because I kept trying to figure it out. To determine what the narrator was to make better sense of them. And what does that say about me?
We live in an age where you can quite literally present yourself as anything, and people say labels don’t matter until you offend someone whose label is important to them. It’s a constant back and forth of identity, but everyone wants to be something and belong somewhere. Even our narrator admits wanting to belong, but never reaches that point. They’ve always been dissatisfied and not compelled to sustain their love life, saying that “Love is not something you can negotiate” (77), which I find to be both true and false. Communication is arguably the most important part of a relationship, romantic or otherwise, and sometimes that involves adjusting perspectives. If you apply that to people you don’t even know and adjust your perspective a little, would that improve your understanding?
As far as the narrator’s identity, Winterson includes references and pieces of speech that can technically be interpreted as male or female, but I think those instances are also a reflection of the reader and what they’re used to seeing. Many people view individuals who are emotionally expressive as more feminine, and even though we see this protagonist cry we also see them be violent towards a woman–violence is often portrayed as a masculine trait/quality. This novel seems to probe at your biases by not giving you enough information to deduce gender, and that’s frustrating because who wants to read something that constantly causes you to reflect when literature is mainly consumed as entertainment? If all books denied you the possibility to escape from reality would you still love them? Exactly.
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