Female Subjectivity Formation in Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, University of Zanjan

2 PhD Candidate, English Literature Department, The Faculty of Education and Humanities, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Tabriz, Iran.

Abstract

Jenette Winterson, postmodern iconoclastic writer, posits the concept of ‘self’ as the central challenge of her female characters. Her autobiographical novel, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, depicts contemporary woman’s solo quest to achieve her true self and construct her desired subjectivity. Portrayal of female subjectivity in Winterson’s text goes well with the figuration of nomadic female subjectivity in Rosi Braidotti;s feminist philosophy. Braidotti by employing the concept of “nomadic subjectivity” has contributed to the critique of identity, she notices the velocity of changes in the twenty first century and challenges the issue of identity and emphasizes that we need to know who we want become rather than who we are. Winterson in her story represents a positive and prosperous image of a woman who in the search of her true self, finds out that her subjectivity is a matter of construction and becoming not an essence given to her by her biological or adopted parents. This study traces the process of becoming a free female thinking subject through Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal in Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic subjectivity theoretical framework and tends to conclude that all women are at the threshold of becoming a free female thinking subject, but only women who acquire knowledge and intellectuality are apt to transgress phallocentrism and constitute their independent subjectivity.

Keywords

References

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