User:Zian Butler/sandbox

Jordan and The Dog Woman
In the narrative we see that the main characters, mother and adopted son, are contrasted heavily trough their physical descriptions and their thought processes. Jordan has attributes that are usually considered to be more of a feminine nature and continually searches for answers on gendered relations. One of the scenes, early on in the book demonstrates Jordan's capability to engage with his feminine side and gain some understanding of women's perspective on men: "I have met a number of people who, anxious to be free of the burdens of their gender, have dressed themselves men as women and women as men. After my experience in the pen of prostitutes I decided to continue as a woman for a time and took a job on a fish stall" (Winterson 26).

Historiography
Jeanette Winterson's "Sexing the Cherry" has been argued to be an important historiographical novel for women. Jeffrey Roessner argues: "The focus of feminist historiographers has steadily shifted from recovering the neglected past experience of women to historicizing the patriarchal values that helped produce such experience." In addition to voicing her concern with the hierarchical structures in society, within her novel Winterson encourages readers to think about sex dichotomies as a thing of the past. With her main characters of Dog Woman and Jordan she achieves a contrasting of the sexes that has been taken into consideration multiple times by scholarly articles such as Roessner's. When considering these two main characters within the novel as a historiography and the context they are put into, what is important to remember is that: "Ultimately...Winterson rejects linear temporality and endorses an apocalyptic urge to escape history and the power structures of a male-dominated society."

The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Within the novel, Jeanette Winterson utilizes the individual stories of The Twelve Dancing Princesses in order to make a statement about the usual, subversive nature of femininity in a patriarchy dominated society. In this reclaimed story, the author choses to give the women princesses a voice of determination, one that undercuts the nature of the usual fairy tale story ending. In each of the stories that the princesses tell, the male figure is oppressive, dominating, foul, and overall a burden to the women. In turn, the women decide to run away with secret lovers, or to kill their respective husbands in order to live a better life. Through the use of this story, Winterson achieves further contrast to the main characters' story lines given that Jordan is in search of a meaningful link between himself and the gender roles offered in society while Dog Woman is consistently portrayed as a highly masculine character with larger than life qualities that set her apart from the standards of femininity according to societal norms.

Zian Butler (talk) 00:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)