Jeanette Winterson

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

Quiz 1-5

1. Who is Maxi Ball? 2. How does Jeanette’s mother meet

Pastor Spratt? 3. List two out of three of the duties the

Princess takes over from the old hunchback?

4. Why doesn’t Jeannette’s mother want to send her to school?

5. Why is Elsie Norris called “Testifying Elsie”? –

Quiz 6-10 6. How does Jeanette’s mother discover that

her daughter is deaf? 7. a. Either What books gives Jeanette’s mother fortitude? b. Or, List Elsie’s favorite poets 8. What are the featured items in Pastor

Spratt’s exhibition? 9. How does Jeanette explain to herself why

Mrs. Virtue doesn’t appreciate her sampler? 10. What does King Tetrahedron learn from

watching all the comedies and all the tragedies at once?

Bilgungsroman

A Bildungsroman is, most generally, the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order. The growth process, at its roots a quest story, has been described as both "an apprenticeship to life" and a "search for meaningful existence within society."

Bildungsroman

To spur the hero or heroine on to their journey, some form of loss or discontent must jar them at an early stage away from the home or family setting.

The process of maturity is long, arduous, and gradual, consisting of repeated clashes between the protagonist's needs and desires and the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order.

Bildungsroman

Eventually, the spirit and values of the social order become manifest in the protagonist, who is then accommodated into society. The novel ends with an assessment by the protagonist of himself and his new place in that society.

Bildungsroman

Another more formulaic definition by Jerome Buckley. “A child who grows up in the country or in a provincial town where he finds constraints, social and intellectual, placed upon the free imagination, a family who proves doggedly hostile to his creative insights or flights of fancy, a first schooling experience, that even if not totally inadequate, may be frustrating, at least two love affairs of sexual encounters, one debasing, one exalting. The denouement in the plot comes from the hero’s journey away from home (typically to a big city) and the climax is provided by his eventual return to this home once his initiation is complete.”

Bildungsroman

Can also be associated with Joseph Campbell’s descriptions of the stages of the heroic journey – separation, initiation, return.

Female Bildgungsroman

The central relationship is the mother/daughter relationship. The daughter has to grow against an incredibly strong and powerful mother figure. The main characters find in their mothers either a positive or a negative influence and they are predominately motivated by their mothers – even in their desire to flee them.

What is Jeanette’s relationship with her mother? What kind of woman is the mother? How does Jeanette rebel against her mother? How does the mother constrain Jeanette’s flights of the imagination?

Female Bildungsroman

Establishing sexual identity or learning to understand sexuality, become the subject or controller of one’s own sexuality is a prominent theme in Feminist Literature.

What clues does Jeanette have about sexuality in her early life? How does her mother respond to “sex?” What models of sexual behavior does Jeanette have?

Female Bildungsroman

Heroines of Bildungsroman begin by challenging the social/cultural/moral rules of their “home” base. They don’t agree, they are different. They come, however, to see the value in the rules and learn to conform.

How is Jeanette a challenger? Where do you think she might begin to push the borders even harder?

Bible as a Reference

Winterson uses the first six books of the bible as her narrative frame. But, it’s interesting how she uses the first five books differently from the sixth.

Here’s a copy of the sixth. Please read it for Monday, with the last chapters of the book.

Genesis

Includes creation, fall, tower of Babel, calling of Abrham, sacrifice of Isaac, Lot and his wife. But, here we find mostly new testament biblical illusions – the mom’s desire for a virgin birth, the star that guided her mother to the orphanage, the lack of Magi at her cradle. One of the things she accomplishes is the removal of the predominantly male image of creation found in both the old and new testament. The power of creation doesn ’t rest with Jeanette’s father, the passive Joseph figure, but with Jeanette’s mother.

Exodus

Jeanette leaves home to go to school. Here, she laments her inability to interpret the pillar of cloud, she, like the escaping Israelites, has to guide her in the day time.

--The ground rules of the world outside the church.

--People who don’t understand her interest in hell and damnation.

The Books of the LawLeviticus

Leviticus,Numbers, and Deuteronomy – are books of “The Law.” They are about Jeanette’s domination by her mother and by the church.

Leviticus has a long section in it about “perfection” and what sacrifices are demanded of those who fail to attain it.

Fairy Tales

1. How does Winterson’s use of “fairy tales” function within the novel? How do they affect the “autobiographical” or “realistic” sections of the novel?

Numbers

Numbers is about the wandering of the Israelites in the desert. Jeanette begins to wander outside the church, wanders away from her mother’s domination and away from her heterosexuality.

What is significant about the way Winterson withholds and then names Jeanette’s mother? Anything significant in her name?

Deuteronomy

Establishes rules for human behavior. – dietary laws, for example. Jeanette learns to test the facts for herself. “refined foods contain insufficient roughage to prevent intellectual constipation.”

This chapter is all about “storytelling.” Why is it placed where it is – in the exact center of the novel? How is the message it contains connected to the theory we’ve been reading?

Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”

Why allusion is so important to understanding the text.

Joshua and Judges

Joshua – at the battle of Jericho. Jeanette’s continuing battle with her mother.

Judges – Mostly male judges. In Winterson, the judges are female. Some of whom are lesbians, who nonetheless condemn Jeanette for her open displays of lesbianism.

Ruth

Winterson uses Ruth much more thematically than she uses the other books. With the other books, the allusions are sort of “slant.” Here they’re much more direct.

In 5 small groups, discuss the ways that she uses the themes of Ruth in the last chapter of her book.

Where do the book of Ruth and Winterson’s text collide in terms of the following themes:

Group #1 – Exile and Return Group #2 – Female Bonding Group #3 – Mother/Daughter

Relationships Group #4 – Loss and

Loneliness Group #5 – Female Autonomy