Androgyny in Literature

The androgynous tone of Jeanette Winterson's novel, Written on the Body, explores the necessity of defining a gender to the narrator and defining desire. The nameless, sexless character that Winterson creates embodies the notion that a character does not need a gender with the text of a novel to convey desire. The universality of desire transcends sex, age, class and lifestyle - a dramatic theme that Winterson employs quite well in her text, and requires the reader to explore the inhibitions of placing a sex on desire.

The main character, hereby in referred to as the narrator, remains completely unknown to the reader, in terms of sexuality, and obliges the reader to take him/her as they are. It is here that Winterson allows the reader to release themselves from the stereotypical thought processes of how a man or a woman would react in a situation, and permits the reader to see how a person would react. The lack of gender of the narrator gives the reader permission to forgo previous notions of gender differences, and see the desire as raw and undefined, and without the limitations that gender can place on those emotions. As Bennett and Royle addresses: "...it is that literary texts calls into question many of our essentialist ideas about gender."(Bennett and Royle, 145) Winterson's text calls into question the fundamental differences of gender, by not addressing gender at all, leaving the reader to inquire about gender differences within tests for themselves.

Within the narrator's existence is an incessant need to satisfy desire, haplessly going from one romantic relationship to another, for the mere delight in desire. It is with Louise, in which s/he contemplates this fact within the confines of the relationship. "How shall I know whether Louise is what I must do or must avoid?" (Winterson, 43) The narrator is able to step outside his or her own desire to acknowledge that it is his or her desire that has prompted this tryst. It is his or her own desire to desire and to be desired that has created a situation in which the narrator is no longer certain s/he can control.

With prior relationships, the narrator has a seeming control over his or her emotions, keeping a distance from the other parties involved, but s/he finds himself much more painfully involved with Louise. It is the discomfort and bliss of desire that provokes his/her behavior. "I had no dreams to possess you, but I wanted you to possess me." (Winterson, 52) The longer the narrator stays in the relationship with Lousie, the more control s/he seems to lose.

In prior relationships, the narrator had almost total control of him/herself and of the situation. Take for example Jacqueline. "You mean we'll talk about it and you'll do what you want anyway," (Winterson, 58) she says to the narrator, when they discuss Louise and the fact that the narrator is cheating again. Previously, the narrator had little consideration for the feelings of the people s/he was with, s/he simply did as his/her desire directed him. S/he cheated on Jacqueline, though s/he swore that s/he had changed. Yet, when confronted with Louise, the narrator loses the desire to stray, and gains a desire to maintain a relationship with her.

Though Louise is a married woman, the narrator is undeterred, and perhaps, is even more interested because of it.

Winterson, Jeanette. Written on the Body. New York: Knopf, 1993

Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royle, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. 3rd Edition. Philadelphia: Trans-Atlantic Publications, Inc, 2004.