<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Throughout her writing career, Jeanette Winterson has experimented with her life experience, revisiting in particular the complex relationship with her adoptive mother, Mrs W, in such works as <italic>Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit</italic> (1985), <italic>Sexing the Cherry</italic> (1989), and <italic>Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal</italic> (2011). This article examines the complex mother-daughter relationship between Jeanette and Mrs W to illustrate the birth of a feminist writer. In answer to her mother’s confiscation of her birth narrative, Jeanette Winterson has fictionalized Mrs W to alter traditional narrative paradigms she deemed repressive. The process has allowed the daughter to open up an enunciative space for herself through performative utterances: “I’m telling you stories. Trust me.” Finally, the parallel drawn between Mrs Winterson and Mrs Thatcher in the former’s fictional avatars highlights specifically the personal political itinerary of the feminist writer.</p></abstract>

Throughout her writing career, Jeanette Winterson has experimented with her life experience, revisiting in particular the complex relationship with her adoptive mother, Mrs W, in such works as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), Sexing the Cherry (1989), and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal (2011). This article examines the complex mother-daughter relationship between Jeanette and Mrs W to illustrate the birth of a feminist writer. In answer to her mother’s confiscation of her birth narrative, Jeanette Winterson has fictionalized Mrs W to alter traditional narrative paradigms she deemed repressive. The process has allowed the daughter to open up an enunciative space for herself through performative utterances: “I’m telling you stories. Trust me.” Finally, the parallel drawn between Mrs Winterson and Mrs Thatcher in the former’s fictional avatars highlights specifically the personal political itinerary of the feminist writer.

The Fictional Avatars of Mrs W: The Influence of the Adoptive Mother and the Birth of Jeanette Winterson as a Writer

Prague Journal of English Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Throughout her writing career, Jeanette Winterson has experimented with her life experience, revisiting in particular the complex relationship with her...

The Fictional Avatars of Mrs W: The Influence of the Adoptive Mother and the Birth of Jeanette Winterson as a Writer

Published Online: Sep 06, 2018

Page range: 123 - 139

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/pjes-2018-0008

Keywords
Rewriting, rereading, mother-daughter relationship, feminism, Margaret Thatcher

© 2018 Emilie Walezak, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

The Fictional Avatars of Mrs W: The Influence of the Adoptive Mother and the Birth of Jeanette Winterson as a Writer

Published Online: Sep 06, 2018

Page range: 123 - 139

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/pjes-2018-0008

KeywordsRewriting, rereading, mother-daughter relationship, feminism, Margaret Thatcher

© 2018 Emilie Walezak, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
Rewriting, rereading, mother-daughter relationship, feminism, Margaret Thatcher