Jeanette Winterson is a highly praised British writer known for her audacious narrative style, innovative storytelling, and exploration of themes like identity, gender, and sexuality. Her literary works often challenge conventional boundaries, mingling elements of fiction, autobiography, and myth. Winterson first gained extensive recognition with her debut novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), a semi-autobiographical tale about growing up in a strict religious environment and noticing her sexuality. Her work is marked by a lyrical, often poetic prose and a deep philosophical searching of love, time, and selfhood. Over the years, Winterson has built a reputation as a daring voice in contemporary literature, known for engaging in complex themes with wit, intelligence, and emotional depth.
Many of her novels, such as The Passion (1987) and Written on the Body (1992), defy traditional narrative forms, and she recurrently uses fantastical elements to explore human experience. Winterson’s writing delves into the fluidity of gender and the transformative power of love, inspiring readers to rethink static notions of identity. Her bold literary experimentation and ability to intertwine themes of existential inquiry have earned her numerous honors. Beyond fiction, Winterson is also a renowned essayist and public intellectual, offering stimulating insights on art, politics, and society. Through her diverse works, she has made a long-lasting impact on both modern British literature and global researches about gender and identity.
The present paper first provides the literature review on Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Then, the Malabouian critical concepts of the material, alterity without transcendence, destructive plasticity, plasticity, and trans-subjectivation shall be presented. The Material by Catherine Malabou and The Mirror Stage by Lacan would be juxtaposed. The aim would be the presentation of the way each thinker conceptualizes the formation of subjectivity in the process of subjectivation. Consequently, the core section of the study would be elaborated. It would be expressed that while Lacan’s model is rooted in the Imaginary, Malabou insists on the formative and plastic power of materiality itself. Finally, the findings of the research would be addressed in the concluding section. This comparison further allows for a critical reflection on the philosophical and political stakes of embodiment, presence, transformation, and subjectivation in contemporary theory.