EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

ARGUMENTATIVE TEXT

Thesis: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is an example of postmodern novel

Focus on the novel: structural analysis map

Notes: arguments in favor of the thesis

Product: Argumentative text

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

By Jeanette Winterson

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS

LITERARY GENRE

Memoir

• focus on emotions, feelings

• unfold of the writer’s emotional life along her telling literature as finding place

• association of ideas, without respecting chronology

• pursuit of authenticity

A Memoir is not an Autobiography!

EXPECTATIONS FROM THE TITLE

Why? question start from a problem, doubt Be/Could undefined subject question for anyone

Happy aim of all human-beings

Normal standardization, suppression of individualism, acceptance

The reader expects the novel to be about choices and their implications: the influence of people’s opinion, the pursuit of the aim,the meaning of the choice…

DEDICATION

To my three mothers:

C. Winterson adoptive mother (upbrought Jeanette)

R. Rendell literary mother (helped Jeanette with the re-discovery of her past story)

A. S. biological mother (object of Jeanette’s search)

Even if quite different from each other, they were all fundamental figures for Jeanette

TRIBUTESThanks to friends, editors, supporters,

who believed in Jeanette and supported her

STRUCTURE

Fifteen chapters and a Coda

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE CHAPTERS

a) TITLE: how does it introduce the content of the paragraph?

b) CONTENT: how is each chapter linked to the previous one?

c) CHARACTERIZATION: Jeanette vs Mrs. Winterson

FIRST CHAPTER The Wrong Crib

Wrong: idea of mistake, inadequacy, issue introduction of the main topic of the novel: adoption and life as an adopted child

SECOND CHAPTER My Advice To Anybody Is: Get Born

Advice to Anybody: literature as instrument for everybodyGet Born: “origin” as fundamental part of people’s story and identity pursuing of happiness as objective for life

Development of the main topic introduced in the previous paragraph

THIRD CHAPTER In The Beginning Was The World

Quotation from the Bible: religious texts as basis of Jeanette’s education and basis of Mrs. Winterson’s thought

Resumation of the binomia happiness-life, trough the comparison between Jeanette and her mother

FOURTH CHAPTER The Trouble With A Book…

Quotation from the chapter: Mrs. Winterson’s and Jeanette’s idea of reading and literature: differences between characters

Development of the content of the previous chapter: function and reading of books

FIFTH CHAPTER At Home

Home: “centre of gravity”, “place of order”, reference point Jeanette’s discomfort at home Jeanette’s discovery of an alternative home: books

Another point of view about books: the emotional bond between book and reader

SIXTH CHAPTER Church

Church: second crucial setting of Jeanette’s life: place of help, hope it comforted Jeanette hostile place (ex. exorcism) made her reflect about contradictions of love and religion

Description of another seminal place in Jeanette’s history

SEVENTH CHAPTER Accrington

Description of the small town, its inhabitants and shops

Wider portrait of the place in which Jeanette lived

EIGTH CHAPTER The Apocalypse

Apocalypse: reference to Mrs. Winterson’s belief about religion, meaning of life and idea about death; meatphor for the discovery of Jeanette’s omosexuality,a crucial event in her life

Resumation of two topics: religion and sexuality

NINETH CHAPTER English Literature A-Z

Books as “messages in bottles”, writers as friends, who could support Jeanette in her diffficulties

Further explanation about Jeanette’s conception of literature

TENTH CHAPTER This Is The Road

This is the road: (quotation from the previous chapter)Application and admission to Oxford and reflection about the role of women in society

ELEVENTH CHAPTER Art and Lies

Art: double reference to Jeanette’s university career and to her reflections about literature as art-formLies: reference to biases by the university tutor against Jeanette and women and by Mrs Winterson against Vicky and Jeanette

Development of the previous chapter, regarding life at University

Intermission

Reflection about life and art, fighting against chronological time.Jeanette’s predilection for imagination and emotions, not facts.

Another point of view about Art

TWELFTH CHAPTER The Night Sea Voyage

Night: darkness a great, dark secret is unvealed and it has got repercussions on Jeanette’s life and moodSea Voyage: reference to an episode of Jeanette’s life, metaphor of an important discovery (sheep drawer, treasure certificate)

THIRTEENTH CHAPTER This Appointment Takes Place In The Past

Appointment: multiple references: love affair with Susie, research about adoption with root, last meeting with the father and appointment with her biological mother

Consequences of the discovery described in the previous chapter

FOURTEENTH CHAPTER Strange Meeting

Meeting between Jeanette and her biological motherStrange: mix of multiple emotions felt by Jeanette

Description of the crucial appointment, anticipated in the previous chapter

FIFTEENTH CHAPTER The Wound

Wound: mark, that has got different meanings to differnt people. Both Mrs Winterson, Jeanette and Anne were wounded

Jeanette reflects on her vojage trough time and finally feels at home

CODA

Information about the following meetings between Jeanette and Ann, reflection about maternity and love, Determination to face the future

CHARACTERIZATION

Jeanette Winterson:

• She is the narrator as well as the protagonist;

• The reader knows her trough her most private feelings , thoughts and trough the account of some meaningful episodes of her life;

• The reader takes part in her sufference and troubles;

Mrs. Winterson:

• The reader knows her trough Jeanette’s description subjective portrait

• Information about her ideas, life-style and physical-appearance are provided, as well as numerous quotations she liked

• The attitude of the reader towards her is changable: on one side he feels compassion, on the other side he criticizes her because of her eccessive hardness

MAP

NOTES: ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR Postmodern novels:

1.Open structure: no chain of causation between chapters conjectures by the reader

resumption of the same theme/concept/idea in different chapters

2. Quotations

3. Absence of absolute truths

4. Mixture of topics, registers, languages

Memoir:

1. association of ideas, without respecting chronology

2. focus on emotions, feelings

3. unfold and sharing of ideas with the reader

chance to fill the gaps in the past

ARGUMENTATIVE TEXTWhy Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir by Jeanette Winterson, published in 2011. Since it is a memoir, the reader expects the writer to look at her past and bring it back to life in the light of her present, using the device of the first person narrator. To tell the truth, the speaking voice retraces the seminal events of her life (causes and steps of adoption, discovery of her homosexuality, pull-out of her parents’ home, registration at Oxford University, search and meeting of her biological mother) adding her reflections, emotions and regrets about the matter of reflection. The first thing the reader notes is, facts are not told following a chronological but a mental order (it is one of the main differences between memoir and autobiography): there is no chain of causation between chapters; on the contrary the reader is asked to find connections between sections, even if they are not in a row. It seems as if each reader was asked to path his own way inside the text: it follows that there are so many possible paths and connections as the readers (my personal analysis of the novel is synthetized in the map).

The peculiarity is typical of postmodern novels in which, according to Feyerabend’s famous quotation, “the only absolute truth is: there are no absolute truths”. Each interpretative hypothesis of the text has got the same value and none of them is absolutely TRUE. The writer herself, in the coda of the memoir affirms: “I had to know the story of my beginnings but I have to accept that this is a version too. It is a true story but it is still a version”, that is, every time you remember, you look at the past from the current perspective (a subjective, many-sided, dynamic perspective) and you always got different feelings and versions.

Since there is no truth, no objectivity, the writer focuses her attention on emotions, appealing to subjectivity, involving the reader and making up an intimate, silent dialogue with him.

Each word, each reflection, may mean or evocate something different in the reader’s mind:This is memoir and this is postmodernism!

An infinitive range of interpretations and approaches to life.

The theme is the essence of the whole memoir, because Jeanette’s reflection (and, as a consequence, her memoir) starts with her desire of pursuing happiness, according to her love for life, even if it is difficult. Each chapter is an argument in favor of Jeanette’s vision of the world: her conception of Literature (ch. 4, 7, 9, 11) , Home (ch. 2, 5, 15), Identity (ch. 1, 2, 12), Life (ch. 4, 13, 14, 15), her interest in the contradictions of the world (love, religion, history, society ch.2,6, 10,11) and last but not least, the contrast between her world and Mrs. Winterson’s one (ch. 1, 2, 8). As you can see, there are some key words that often figure in the lines: wound, loss, love, happiness, trouble, sinn. It seems as if they formed an oxymoron but it fits with the complexity of life and it is another typical aspect of postmodernism. Furthermore, the memoir is full with different kinds of quotations: biblical (from the Apocalypse), literary (from Oranges Is Not The Only Fruit, The Condition of the English Working Class by Engels, To his Coy Mistress by Marvell, The Awful Rowing Toward God by Anne Sexton) or personal (Mrs. Winterson’s “The Devil led us to the wrong crib”, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls” and “She is a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead and a fault to nature”). Quotations are typical of postmodernism as well as the mixture of different registers and languages (from the slang and the language of the working class to the literary references), since they try to express the complexity of the world, that is, quoting Jeanette’s words in chapter one, “unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control”.

The writer herself confesses, “When we tell a story it is a version, but never the final one; we offer the silence as much as the story and perhaps we hope that the silences will be heard by someone else, and the story can continue”. There is no demand to preserve a truth as it happens in the traditional novel; rather the objective of the writer is to reach and involve as many people as possible, while trying to dull her pain and pursue happiness, since “as long as I had words, images and stories for who I could be and how I could feel, then I wasn’t lost”.

CREDITS

Desirèe MoscaVA