38 pages • 1 hour read
Jeanette WintersonWritten On The Body
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Marriage and Fidelity
Despite the varied and numerous sexual relationships in which the narrator has engaged, the narrator has a strong moral sense regarding marital commitment. The narrator’s respect for marriage is ironic as many of the narrator’s prior lovers have been married women and the narrator acknowledges a susceptibility to become involved sexually with married women. Though the narrator finds married women irresistible, the narrator’s attempts to rationalize the affairs suggests that the narrator has sufficient integrity to feel uncomfortable on some level with infidelity.
In an effort to justify these affairs, the narrator notes that the vulnerability of past lovers to extramarital affairs was largely predicated upon boredom and tedium. The narrator describes one such past lover who explains that her only alternative to an affair was “a degree at the Open University” (14). The same woman confesses that her husband is a good man; she does not wish to hurt him by disclosing the extramarital affair. The narrator rationalizes the impact of affairs on such marriages by arguing that the alleviation of tedium provided by these sexual escapades have enabled wives to return to the safe monotony of monogamous marriages.
Gender and Sex
At no point in the narrative does the narrator of Written on the Body reveal a gender identity. The narrator reveals past love affairs with both women and men, demonstrating both stereotypically masculine and feminine traits often in quick succession. For example, the narrator becomes physically violent with Elgin, Louise’s husband, and this display of aggression is stereotypically linked with the male gender. The narrator’s consequent care and tenderness towards Elgin after the confrontation is more typical of stereotypical expectations of women.
The lack of gender specificity is especially notable given the narrator’s fixation on the physical body and Louise’s body in particular. The effect is to emphasize romantic love free from gender and sexual norms. Moreover, the ambiguity intensifies the sense of the narrator’s passion and sexuality because the narrator is known primarily through the narrator’s love affairs, and especially through the narrator’s relationship with Louise. The imagery used throughout implies that a passionate love affair leaves a tattoo-like repercussion on one’s physical person. Ultimately, the most important role in the narrative is that of a lover.
The Significance of Human Anatomy
The author approaches the discussion of the human body on several levels. The narrator ruminates at length about the overtly erotic characteristics of Louise’s body, commenting on each beautiful aspect, often through metaphors and visceral details. After their first episode of lovemaking, the narrator describes Louise’s body as a vast unexplored territory, wondering whether Columbus felt “like this on sighting the Americas” (52). The heat of her hands is compared to “the campfire that mocks the sun” (51). The narrator strains to taste Louise’s skin in the event that its scent was transmitted to a soup that she had prepared. Like a metaphysical poet, the author spends a great deal of time analyzing and complimenting all parts of Louise’s body, and the narrative ranges from poetic to erotic.
After the narrator learns of Louise’s illness, the narrator becomes obsessed with the human body in a different way. Deprived of actual contact with Louise, the narrator becomes immersed in a study of esoteric medical anatomy texts in order to have a greater understanding of the repercussions of her disease. The narrator moves from objective, medical definitions of various aspects of the body (e.g., cells, tissues, skeleton) to recollections about time spent with Louise, often using biblical imagery. The combination of images illustrates the complexity of the narrator’s relationship with the human body; at times, the narrator uses terms that are corporeal and violent to describe the body, while at other times, the narrator elevates the body to a spiritual level. The narrator’s ambivalence towards the body contrasts with the narrator’s sureness of emotion towards Louise.
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By Jeanette Winterson
