"Productive Love" Under Aberration:A Frommian Study Of Jeanette Winterson's Three Novels

As a distinguished contemporary British writer,Jeanette Winterson(1959-)explores various themes in her works which reflect the social reality as well as her ideal pursuit of love,which is the subject that Winterson is keen on.In her three representative works,namely,Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit(1985),Written on the Body(1992),and Lighthousekeeping(2004),love and care between the protagonists have been described by Winterson in striking details and philosophical language.Despite the abundance of love narrations,Winterson depicts characters presenting indifference,estrangement and hypocrisy,and exhibits the maladies of modern society.Therefore,this thesis aims to anatomize the distorted characters and the morbid society,and the "love" depictions in these three works,thus exploring Winterson's penetrating insights into individuals' spiritual and existential aberration in modern society,and her humanist concern on the way to salvation through the universal theme of "love".Selecting Winterson's three novels mentioned above as the research subject and Erich Fromm's hominology as the framework,this thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter One briefly introduces Winterson's life and literary works,summarizes Winterson studies both at home and abroad,and explains the theoretical framework of this paper.Chapter Two concentrates on the characters' "non-productive orientation"as well as the underlying causes,thus disclosing individuals' spiritual aberration.Chapter Three points out that the maladies of society doom the individuals to deviation and abnormalcy,with implications for the contemporary society,from which Winterson's questions and meditation on the existential anomaly of the individual will be elucidated.By illustrating the form,manifestation and significance of "love",Chapter Four gives an analysis on the "productiveness" of "love",and explores how such "productive love" leads individuals to salvation.The last chapter concludes that Winterson,from spiritual and existential perspectives,sees individuals in modern society as grounded in the entanglement and aberration,and ponders over the suggested way of embracing love,of promoting "productive love",through which one can feel Winterson's humanist concern on the individual indwelling in modern society.