Gender and Sexuality in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body DOC

Title	Gender and Sexuality in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body
Author	Dina Nabil
Pages	1
File Size	84 KB
File Type	DOC
Total Downloads	602
Total Views	697

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Nabil 1 Gender and Sexuality in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body Dina Nabil Abstract: Cultural criticism seeks to shed light on the social structure and social function implied in literary discourse. This theory scrutinizes the social structures of a civilized society as well as a primitive one: their functions, traditions and taboos as illustrated within literary works. Being closely attached to the social role of a male or female, gender is one of paramount topics studied by cultural criticism. The determination of the narrator's sex enables the reader to read many of the messages wrapped in the text; at least it determines the narrator's gender as a man or woman. The demolition of stereotypical social molds hallmarks the era of postmodernism; boundaries between binary oppositions have been dissolved. Accordingly, "violent hierarchy" has been disintegrated without favoring one of the poles over another. Consequently, the borders between male/female, sex-wise, and masculine/feminine, gender-wise, have been blown up. Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson, is a clear example of this stance. Employing a unique sexually undetermined narrator lends the novel to a feminist criticism as well as queer theory. Also, the novel challenges the patriarchal system through the dismantling of power and its circulation between the main characters. Keywords:...