Here, Abrams gives an expedient citation of Simone de Beauvoir, according to which an individual is not born but becomes a woman, and it is a civilization that produces this social construct (89). Abrams states, “It is widely held that while one’s sex is determined by anatomy, the prevailing concepts of gender… are large,…, cultural constructs that were generated by the pervasive patriarchal biases of our civilization” (89). The second idea is formulated as follows. It leads to the derogation of the dignity of the female sex, as well as women’s own participation in this derogation because they assimilate these principles at the unconsciousness level.
Throughout their whole life, women are being taught to undoubtedly accept the regnant patriarchal foundations. According to Abrams, social order “is organized and conducted in such a way as to subordinate women to men in all cultural domains: familial, religious, political, economic, social, legal, and artistic” (89). The first issue that feminist literature aims to address is the founding perspective that Western civilization is mostly patriarchal, according to which this civilization is ruled and controlled by a man.
There are three of them, which will be presented below in order to subsequently consider Written on the Body as a feminist text. Feminist Criticism by Abrams’ A Glossary of Literary TermsĪt this point, it is important to explore the ideas provided by Abrams regarding feminist criticism in his A Glossary of Literary Terms. Winterson creates the story of love that contains no stereotypes, puts an emphasis on the purity of love – not on gender and sexuality, and ends the plot in an optimistic manner, leaving the audience feeling sympathy for the main characters from the first to the last page. The narrator chooses the latter and starts regretting it to a great extent. Nevertheless, there is a turning point when there is a necessity to make a choice for the narrator – the couple’s temporary but true happiness or Louise’s life. He or she, after a great number of unlucky relationships, finds Louise, who becomes the narrator’s soulmate. The main feature of the book is that the gender of this narrator is never revealed by the author. The novel provides a significant sequence of events that are accompanied by the narrator’s thoughts and reflections. It might be suggested that the book is kind of an erotic narration of love.
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