Jeanette Winterson Language

There is no doubt that everyone has either heard or used the argument, “It's not what you said, it's how you said it,” and the fact is that there is actually quite a lot of truth to that statement.   Language is everything, it's the basis of communication for all creatures, while the type of language differs between cultures, species, etc., the structure that dictates and confines communication widely remains the same.   An ill-timed hand gesture can be received much differently than it's original intention at any   given time, and our spoken language is no different.   Between the two authors discussed here there is two seemingly quite different uses of our modern language. Jeanette Winterson uses an evocative method of language in her writing in an effort to de-construct traditional classifications, using subtle seduction to dissolve typical gender roles a reader might be used to reading.   Unlike Angela Carter, who seemingly uses the abject, this notion of experiences something unwanted yet unavoidable, to both repulse and compel a reader to continue as shown within Passion of the New Eve, Winterson allows the words to rather speak for themselves.   In both novels, The Passion and Written on the Body, Winterson's ability to subdue and captivate is quickly put to work.   As Celia Shiffer states in her article “You See I am No Stranger to Love”: Jeanette Winterson and the Extasy of the Word, she believes language means everything, “Our Bodies demand to be heard and can be spoken; words have a remarkable connection to the real” (Shiffer, 40). She continues, quoting Henri, “Words like passion and extasy, we learn about them but they stay flat on the page” (Passion, 155), and Shiffer argues “Yet the texts' project seems to be to make words three-dimensional, which is essentially to endow them with
body” (Shiffer, 40).   It is here the point is made, while Carter uses obvious boundary-pushing literature to make a point, it is Winterson's cleverness within language that...