An Analysis Of Jeanette Winterson’s Lighthousekeeping From Perspective Of Feminist Narratology

Jeanette Winterson is one of the most prominent women writers who have quite a lot of representative works. Her novels are greatly known for the poetic language and the unique narrative strategy. Because she is living in the post-modern period, she is influenced a lot by two feminist movements, which leads to the result that female consciousness permeates throughout her works. She has distinct insights and deep sympathy towards women’s destiny and their sufferings. She appeals that women should struggle for their own freedom and explore their happiness.Lighthousekeeping is Winterson’s eighth novel, another success after Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. After its publication, it arouses extensive attention throughout the world. In this novel, the writer tells the women’s fate, sufferings, awakening of female consciousness during the Victorian period through Silver’s voice aiming to prove the importance of love in the self-development. This thesis is going to analyze Lighthousekeeping from the perspective of feminist narratology. As a interdisciplinary subject, feminist narratology assimilates the quintessence of classical narratology and feminist literature criticism, bringing in gendered narratology and build its own theoretical foundation. It provides a new perspective to analyze the feminine texts.This thesis is altogether divided into five chapters:The first Chapter is introduction. It gives a brief introduction to Jeanette Winterson’s lifetime, achievements and her work Lighthousekeeping. It also makes a conclusion about the literature reviews about Winterson and Lighthousekeeping home and abroad. Moreover, it points out the creativity and significance of analysis about this novel from the perspective of feminist narratology.The second chapter is the theoretical foundation of the thesis. It introduces Susan Lanser’s feminist narratology, including the definition, development, main features and analyzing methods.The third and forth chapter are the body part of the thesis. Chapter three explains respectively the “authorial voice”, “personal voice”, “communal voice” and “voice of gender” that are used to establish Winterson’s own authority through the shifting of narrative voices. Chapter four depicts from another angle in feminist narratology: gendered narratology and double-narrative structure, highlighting Winterson’s unique narrative strategy and the effects that it has achieved.The fifth chapter is conclusion. In concludes the features of feminist narratology appeared in Lighthousekeeping. This novel can be seen as Winterson’s semi-autobiography, using the ways of telling stories to recall the past. It seems proceeding naturally but displaying her female consciousness in her life journey and the power of love.