An Analysis Of Winterson From The Perspective Of Queer Theory

Jeanette Winterson is a prestigious contemporary British literary writer for her beautifullanguage and unique writing style. Most of her novels are themed with homosexual love. Thewords she used show that her knowledge about sex, quest for identity and thinking aboutdesires. Among her novels, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Sexing the Cherry and Writtenon the Body are the most representative works.Through a close reading of these three novels and combining with Winterson’s life andcreative practice, this paper attempts to give a fresh interpretation to Winterson‘s novels byusing the critical methods of queer theory.This paper is divided into four parts. The first partis the introduction, which mainly describes Winterson’s life and creative experience andresearch status at home and abroad. The second part introduces the methodology of queertheory, including its theoretical origins, theoretical framework and basic contention. The thirdand fourth parts are main parts of this article. At first, through the novel situation ofhomosexuals, the article tries to reveal how heterosexual hegemony works. Then the paperintends to use the homosexual love in the fiction to deconstruct the causal relationshipbetween heterosexual norms, which is based on the mechanisms of biological sex, socialgender and sexual orientation. The aim of this paper is to uncover sidedness of the duality sexstructure under the strict patriarchy society. As well as, it expresses the writer’s concern aboutthe fate of homosexual. Moreover, this paper analyzes the protagonist that has an ambiguoussexuality in this novel from the perspective of gender traits. The protagonist is with thebisexuality temperament. At the same time; this novel shapes the protagonist with a maleimage who cannot win the heart of Mr. Right. In this way, it destructs the traditionalmasculinity and femininity of gender identity and also confirms that the gender traits in factare a strategy for the development of mandatory heterosexual and controlling sexual practicesWhat’s more, it subverts the people’s awareness of natural gender identity. In conclusion, thispaper illustrates Jeanette Winterson’s gender ideology in the novel, that is, through critique ofstrict patriarchal society and naturalized gender order, she calls on the return of the excluded‘her’ and jointly build a new idea of sexual subject. Thereby, by creating a harmonious, equaland new gender order, each individual can be free and unwind.