Refashioning the literary form and discourse of society : a selection of Jeanette Winterson's novels

Abstract

Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1985), Written on the Body (1992), and The Stone Gods (2007) are meta-narratives that foreground issues of (in)authenticity and (mis)representation about the various forms of discourses in society to problematize the notion of “knowledge”. The form of her novels intersects with thematic motifs to subvert the rhetoric of purist discourse and destabilize authoritarian structures in both discourse and society, suggesting that solely “knowledge” is insufficient for one’s way of perceiving and being in the world. As such, Art should be dialogic and open to one’s attempts of locating new meanings, as “knowledge” is a word too much compromised to its links with the sciences” and the logic of rationality. Winterson’s Art transcends the limitations of “knowledge” and speak of the ineffable. Thus, in this paper, I argue that the self-reflexive and subversive writing of Winterson illuminates new meanings of the world and man’s being, and in turn serves to supplant purist models of “knowledge” and refashion existing forms of societal discourses.