Introduction
Jeanette Winterson is a postmodernist writer whose work blends history, fiction, fairy tales, and feminine romance. Postmodernism allows the combining of different writing techniques and genres. In this sense, in The Passion the author could employ parody, irony, historical rewriting, self-reflectivity, and gothic elements. Postmodernism is often characterized as a reaction to the dispersal of components of the modernism movement. Thus, the writer could interpret gothic elements into the theme of love.
Discussion
Gothic literature is a literary combination of dark elements, containing spooky settings, disturbed and conflicted characters into a romantic story that is whimsically horrific. Often, this form of literature revolves around ancient, large houses that conceal terrible secrets or act as refuge of threatening and frightening characters. However, despite the familiar bleak motif, most gothic literature authors employ supernatural elements, a touch of romance, adventure and travel narratives, and familiar historical characters to capture the attention of their readers.
There are various Gothic and Romantic literary features within the novel’s bounds that, when exploited, enable the development of quotations and other summing details that assist the storyline. In literary history, the choice of this period is also self-conscious (Seaboyer 486). The novel functions on an individual level, but the repercussions are far-reaching. The emotional need that the novel promises to fill is conveyed via a story of romantic passion and loss set against a backdrop of high romanticism that includes the rise and fall of Napoleon (Seaboyer 486). The gothic elements are built more or less on an interaction of intertextual and lingual recurrence that focuses on death and mutilation.
Jeanette Winterson’s book shares curiosity in spatial arrangement, not pursuing a single topic. They are evident instances of the multiple nature of a specific type of storytelling, particularly fiction. Uncertainty, and ambiguity, alongside gothic elements that occur in the narrative, connect the novel to postmodern trends in fiction over the previous few decades (Sánchez 95). The Passion also creates a discourse in which the reader must select between several interpretations and numerous alternative readings that are kept open (Sánchez 95). In this way, the novel creates a game in which playful, ambiguous structures are present on both the syntactic and semantic levels. The ambiguity sustains Gothic elements at the story and generic form levels, affecting all categories and limits from the generic to the social (Hillard 690). Narrative forms and tactics cross over from fantasy and fiction worlds into actual and social arenas, producing intense emotions rather than aesthetic judgments and impacts on audiences and readers rather than instructions for them.
Winterson uses and combines many technical postmodern tactics, including historiographic metafiction, parody, intertextuality, and gothic elements in The Passion. She investigates the cultural production of sexual and gender identities while challenging patriarchal and heterosexual hegemonic ideologies (Winterson 67). Standard features of gothic literature are the set of the story and supernatural elements that occur (Sherwin 888). The plot revolves around Henri, the neck wringer, and Villanelle, a Venetian girl with magical abilities. The events are witnessed through the eyes of ordinary people, which is emphasized by the use of colloquial language. In this tiny section of the book, Winterson illustrates Villanelle’s internal conflict and her effort to determine how to cope with her affection for the Queen of Spades (Winterson 84). Winterson employs imagery, metaphor, and tension throughout Villanelle’s discussion with herself to convey the weight of Villanelle’s decision.
Through this lens, it becomes possible to establish the connection between an individual’s thoughts and what happens. Looking at this connection in Henry’s love, one points out that in his account, he gains a distinct understanding of the difference between his genuine love for Villanelle and his infatuation for Napoleon. The knowledge is critical in the book since it makes Jeanette cast a new light on how Henry apprehends himself.
For example, Henry says, ‘I re-read my notebook today and I found: I say I’m in love with her, what does that mean?’ (Sánchez 99). As Henry tries to make the reader understand his feelings, he further explains by saying, ‘it means how he reviews his past and future are now dependent on the feeling he has. He shows that somehow, he re-considers his writing and shows Henry thinks of the words in a different light, where unlike in the past, Henry better understands the meaning of what he had written earlier. Henry even says that wordlessly, based on his feelings, Villanelle explains him to himself, like a genius who is ignorant of what she does. As he continues to write, the writings serve as something he will always have to read’ (Sánchez 99).
The mutability of Villanelle’s body Venice serve as an ambiguity stand in the novel. In The Passion, Winterson brings out gothic literature by making the reader comprehend the liminal space, which represents Villanelle’s body as neither female nor male. In this sense, Winterson not only brings out the obvious erotic desires that draws two people of opposite gender together, but also allows the audience to engage in binary gender divisions. The emphasis in the erotic desire reaches far beyond both symbolic order and social codes that are instable, fluid, amphibious, and labyrinthine as the city of Venice itself. With this understanding, not only is Villanelle an unambiguous woman but Henry is an introvert, smallish, shy, and passive, and represents masculinity’s potency and self-assertiveness.
Winterson’s novel is a tapestry of passions, each with its unique resonance and affectation. The concept of passion is developed in many places throughout the book, even down to the simple pleasure of food, which is especially noticeable for the characters who face hardship and a harsh environment. The Passion also addresses the futility of war by first delving into the many loyalties and religions associated with it. Henri, a straightforward man, has strong feelings for his hometown. Through his dedication to Napoleon, he seeks to understand what it means to be a Frenchman and what the concepts of liberty and triumph mean to the French. In the story, the French emperor is associated with chicken; he is depicted losing games and represented as a comedic figure in his most personal behaviors, which are not generally associated with Napoleon. This satirical depiction of Napoleon is tied to Winterson’s subversive writing to flip the reader’s preconceptions of history.
Winterson also considers the difference between the natural and supernatural in the novel. The author achieves this by portraying a fantastic female character, who is shown as partly animal and party human. In so doing, Winterson deconstructs hierarchies and binaries about body issues and gender within a society whose discourse is patriarchally dominated. Villanelle comes out as a female character; however, she wears male clothes and has male body traits, a concept that makes the character to pose direct threat to culturally-created binaries. Moreover, Villanelle’s web feet, which Winterson reflects within the novel, enables and aids the reader understand the problematic and disrupted stable gender roles limitations. Winterson employs the human being and institutional history to distort the largely constructed and fabulized male-privileged narrative. The gothic element is critical in the novel since it helps the reader confused about whether to decide or fail to believe in the fantastic element within the novel.
Conclusion
Jeanette Winterson’s work, The Passion, analyzes and values the concept of displacing the fixed topic from its dominant position in her fiction. Gothic elements are more emphasized in the historical aspects of the novel. History and fiction share cultural or social backgrounds and formal approaches in The Passion. The interlink between gothic elements and love is crucial when analyzing the novel since they cast an understanding of the distinction between the mirror image of Henry’s feelings for Napoleon and his mature love for Villanelle.
Works Cited
Hillard, Tom J. “‘Deep Into That Darkness Peering’: An Essay on Gothic Nature.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 16, no. 4, 2009, pp. 685–95. JSTOR, Web.
Reeve, Matthew M. “GOTHIC.” Studies in Iconography, vol. 33, 2012, pp. 233–46. JSTOR, Web.
Sánchez, José Francisco Fernández. “Play and (Hi)story in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion.” Atlantis, vol. 18, no. ½, 1996, pp. 95–104. Web.
Seaboyer, Judith. “Second Death in Venice: Romanticism and the Compulsion to Repeat in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion.” Contemporary Literature 38, no. 3, 1997, pp. 483–509.
Sherwin, Paul. “Frankenstein: Creation as Catastrophe.” PMLA, vol. 96, no. 5, 1981, pp. 883–903. JSTOR, Web.
Winterson Jeanette. The Passion. Grove Press. 1987.