"…even though most reviewers agree that the narrator is female, the only evidence that they marshal is highly contestable and merely exposes the often stereotypical and hetero-normative biases in their own reading practices."
Whether a clever rouse or some masterfully worked through with deep purpose, this truth holds strong amongst reviewers and even readers of the less critical nature. It appears as though many have not taken well to the tactic of a gender anonymous narrator for reasons that are simply irrational. Instead of supporting that all conceptions of gender are only those perceived by a reader, I’d instead like to inquire “why?”.
Why does it matter what the sex of the narrator is? How does it change the things that happened -though what has happened can be a bit skewed, as we’ve come to know the narrator themselves is unreliable- between the narrator and Louise? Why and to what end would it change the reader? It is irrelevant.
What would sex have to do with the worship of Louise’s body? The narrator is so very careful to take in everything he or she can take in. He or she use’s their very eye lashes as they memorize every scar and tissue that covers Louise. The memory of their hands will be unrivaled as he or she takes in every inch of flesh that he or she is able to touch. It is said that memory of scent is the strongest, and the narrator devours even the dark, erotic scents of Louise and is over-come with maddening desire because of it; As much as the narrator is driven to bliss by Louise’s taste. He or she takes in everything, consuming and being consumed by white hot passion that destroys and rebuilds.
Once more, why does it matter what their gender is?
The narrator is poetic and philosophic at best. Are only women drawn to romanticism? A decent portion of the most well acclaimed love poets were male. Are only men drawn to thinking/knowledge, and love thought as opposed to emotion? That the narrator is the product of a female mind is proof enough against that.
The narrator is griefed long after their separation. Does mourning require a sex? Did the disciples of Jesus have to be woman to weep when He was crucified? Are mothers more heart broken because a miscarriage was their baby boy and not their baby girl?
Assumptions can be found left and right, and while most agree it is female -though that is primarily due to their critical eye being turned upon Winterson- some conclusions have lead to men: “he [the narrator] broadcasts his current affairs without hesitation, even to near-strangers; it’s difficult to imagine that such love is not heterosexual.”
…What?
In short, only men ever discuss their sexual conquests and one cannot possibly fathom a woman ever doing such a thing. How absurd would that be?
How quick we are to push our own social conditioning between the lines when there is no space there that exists for it.
People cling to this even until the very end. After break up and potential death, still it is fought that the narrator must either be man or woman. Are we not dismissive of most break-ups and the second party’s [newly ex boyfriend or girlfriend] because of their sex? We use phrases like -pardon any skewing or staged sensations. It’s all rubbish, I know- “sounds like she was just another crazy bitch,” or “that’s totally something a guy would do, how insensitive!” As if to imply that women are bats hit mad with emotion and all men are drawn to being callus assholes.
Does it matter how they take in their parting and their reunion? Not in the least.
I ask again, what does it matter what their gender is?
I agree that it really shouldn’t matter what the narrators sex is. I believe that the author was trying to show that it really shouldn’t matter if a relationship is heterosexual or homosexual. Love knows bounds. Just because the narrator is open about speaking of his/her ex’s or that they are very poetic with how they describe Louise, does not mean that the narrator has to be a male or female. These are stereotypes that people want to use to place the narrator into a category of male or female. But that’s just it. They are stereotypes. They aren’t the case for everyone, and you can’t expect everyone to follow these stereotypes. Everyone is different. Females are capable of being poetic, or being outspoken about their past relationships. And men can be submissive in a relationship.
ReplyDeleteIt shouldn’t matter if the narrator was male or female. Sure, some aspects of the story would be different if the narrator had a gender, but they would pull away from what the author was trying to get across. If the narrator was male, we would have a completely different experience with the story, and vice versa. The narrator leaving the gender undefined allows us to focus more on the personality of the narrator, and the emotions.
While I agree with your assertion that the narrator's gender is insignificant, I am going to "disagree" and provide another perspective. I just can't stand reading anymore posts that begin with "I agree with..." and then a rehash/summary of what you just mentioned. (I am not targeting anyone specific nor am I being pretentious... blogging and commenting is getting monotonous so I figured I'd shake things up a bit. That's right, look at me, the rebel.) While I think that it is important to try to maintain gender neutrality when reading the novel, I think it sort of helps to try and figure out the narrator's gender. Mainly, I think that it is interesting to see why people choose to assign a gender as it reveals the extent of their socialization and exactly how easy, or difficult, it is to cause them to shift from male to female, or female to male. The danger in assigning a gender however, although it could arguably be a strength as well, is that there comes expectations from that gender role and when they are fulfilled, the reader goes "see, i told you that the narrator was male/female!" Personally, I've tried to switch it up as much as possible when I was reading but after reading through the novel, I still assume that the narrator was female.
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