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Dancing on their own- feminine voices in Jeanette Wintersons Sexing the Cherry

I have also thought of myself as an outcast, but I have made myself a territory by writing
it. 1 admits Jeanette Winterson on her blog. She then incorporates a group of outcasts, female
characters mainly, that dont really fit in the history books and she makes them fit in her
universe, writing a fantastical word for their sake. They are women with a strong voice and an
independent personality, therefore she gives them the opportunity to shine and to liberate
themselves of the patriarchal societys oppression. The Dog- Woman perhaps the only
woman in English fiction confident enough to use filth as a fashion accessory 2, Fortunata, a
princess who gives up her royal status to become a dance teacher and Artemis, the goddess of
hunting who begs her father for the opportunity of being herself; they all are outcasts of some
sort who get the opportunity of standing up and dancing on their own two feet. What
Winterson succeeds in doing is creating alternative stories in order to shape up a universe of
discourse where the silenced women can speak. She rewrites history in such a way that she
manages to transform a group of outcasts into leading, autonomous characters.
One of the most classic scenes in our childhood fairy tales is the one where the Evil Queen
from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs asks her magic mirror Magic mirror on the wall,
who is fairest of the wall? By asking this, she tries to establish her power and supremacy
through beauty. At the opposite pole, the reader, now grown- up, encounters another powerful
figure, the Dog Woman. She starts depicting her physical appearance through the question
How hideous am I? (STC: 24). Along with the Evil Queen, she is not questioning her
physical trait, but rather she asserts and recognizes it as a given fact which empowers her and
gives her a self-sustainable feature. After all, she doesnt come close to a feminine stereotype.
She is capable of a strong, independent and autonomous existence, not being once weak or
passive.3 By challenging all the aspects that define and make a typical woman, Winterson
succeeds in reducing the idea of femininity to absurdum through the portrayal of the Dog
1 http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/book/sexing-the-cherry/
2 ibid
3 Hester Eisenstein comments that the specific manner of conducting herself
does not make the stereotypical woman able to have of a powerful, independent
and autonomous existence
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Woman. Her hideousness does not refer strictly to her physical ugliness, although she doesnt
possess physical beauty; by all means she is not the fairest of them all. Her hideousness
stops her from meeting any gender expectations, making her incongruous with the stereotype,
the norm. Her enormous physique comes as a result from her hatred for subordination: I am
too huge for love. No one, male or female, has ever dared to approach me. They are afraid to
scale mountains. (STC: 35). Her body becomes a weapon fighting the injustice reserved to
women in that period. Although all the components of her body are entirely female, they are
enlarged to colossal dimensions. She is, in a way, the female equivalent of Gargantuan. In the
fight against those who had power over her, she uses her gigantic stature as a weapon. Her
breasts are so huge that she manages to choke various men with them. Her vagina is so large
that no man is able to fill it, leaving them unable to take their pleasure from her or to
dominate her through intercourse. The Dog Woman uses her monstrous appearance as a
source of power and empowerment; she does not shy away from society, cover her face,
remain silent, or passive. She is the quintessence of female braveness and in her discourse the
reader can observe the character predisposition towards a male behaviour: she often resorts
to physical force, speaks her mind by using blunt words and is well versed in politics. DogWoman is an embodiment that stops any sort of expectations and social regulations regarding
the weak female body and translates this physical strength into an unusual and bold
character.
By trying to escape any sort of subjugation imposed by patriarchal society of the 17 th century,
she defies the role imposed on her. By doing this, she compensates for the power that women
lacked in that epoque with physical strength. The Dog Woman will not become as her mother
before her, a merely instrument for the mans pleasure Later my mother told me that men
take pleasure and women give it. She told me in a matter-of-fact way... (STC: 107) She rebels
against the values passed on from mothers to daughters and seeks comfort outside the society
by becoming a dog breeder, a profession that was fit for a man. Her own father was a
boarhound breeder, so instead of resorting to a feminine set of values, she prefers to create her
own path and adopt her fathers way of life.
She further demolishes the norm by not giving birth, ignoring what the patriarchal society
expected of her. She doesnt refuse the mother role because she finds her son, Jordan in the
slime, across the river. (STC: 11) The Dog Woman doesnt need a man or a husband in order
to justify her existence. That also may be due to the fact that no man can keep up with her
strong personality and conform to her independent way of life. She overtly admits that I
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would have liked to pour out a child from my body but you have to have a man for that and
theres no man whos a match. (STC: 11) She manages to fulfil the desire of maternity
without involving herself with a man, reaffirming, once again, her self- sustainability. Jordan,
her son and the one that knows her best manages, in his musings, to describe the type of
person that the Dog Woman is at her core She has never been in love, no, and never wanted
to be either. She is self-sufficient and without self-doubt. (STC: 101)
Another feature that might give the reader a hint in eluding the mystery that is the Dog
Woman is her generic name I had a name but I have forgotten it. They call me the DogWoman and it will do. (STC: 11) One might argue that by accepting being called this name,
she accepts a name imposed by others, and allows others to impose power over her, to place
her in a category. In my opinion, the first part of her name Dog only hints to one of her
greatest loves in her life, besides her son, her fifty dogs. They are not only a source of
pleasure, comfort, but also a source of income seeing as a she enters them in races and fights
we must be near Hyde Park so that I can enter my dogs in the races and fighting. Every
Saturday I come home covered in saliva and bitten to death but with money in my pocket and
needing nothing but a body for company. (STC: 13) The second part Woman, hints to her
biological representation as a female, given the fact that she has a female body, though
everything else disobeys the prerequisites of a woman in the 17th century Britain.
Her autonomy is strengthened through her beliefs, as well. She only recognizes two powers
above her and is loyal to them: God and the King. She loathes the Puritans for misinterpreting
the word of God, for humiliating and decapitating the king and also for their dreadfully
hypocrisy. Her royalism and appreciation for the King may appear puzzling at first. How can
a person resist the oppression of patriarchy, but not that of the states monarch? Her support
for the royal institution may be a result of her deep hatred for the Puritans who fight against
body and sexuality. It is their drive towards purity, towards cleanliness that incites the Dog
Womans revulsion for what they stand for. Therefore her state of uncleanliness is both a
defence mechanism against curious looks I hate to wash, for it exposes the skin to
contamination. (STC: 35) and her way of opposing the roundheads. Not only does she oppose
the puritan standards and principles in thought, but also in her stature. Her exaggerated
proportions and her active and loud behaviour come as a contradiction to what the Puritans
preached.
Amongst the female characters who are autonomous and live their life by their own set of
values, emerges the figure of Fortunata. In her quest to give those deprived of a voice, the
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strength to make themselves heard, Winterson goes as far as reshaping fairy tales. Those fairy
tales where good triumphs over evil, the boy gets to marry the girl and live happily ever after.
In the retold fairy tales, the princesses, more exactly the Twelve Dancing Princesses from
Grimms The Shoes that were danced to Pieces get a chance to write their own tale and break
free from what is expected of them. The stories, as told from their perspective are
characterized by a light violence as each of the eleven dancing princesses kills her husband
and breaks free from tradition. One of the husbands is chocked with bandages, one dies of
disease spreading in his body, one has his skull smashed. The satire encompassed as a writing
device by Winterson in retelling the classical fairy tales serves a feminist attack of the
phallocentric values conveyed by them. Another trick that she displays is removing the
princesses from the fantastic setting and moving them in the space of the novel, receiving the
same status as the Dog Woman and Jordan He asked me if I knew the story of the Twelve
Dancing Princesses. I said I had heard it, and he told me they were still living just down the
road, though of course they were quite a bit older now. Why didnt I go and see them? (STC:
43) Winterson further shatters the conventions of the fairy tale by changing the ending and
lending the princesses some non- traditional features He had eleven brothers and we were all
given in marriage, one to each brother, and as it says lived happily ever after. We did, but not
with our husbands. (STC: 48) But the princess with the most powerful voice of them all is
Fortunata, the younger sister. If the Dog Woman is created out of hard and grotesque lines,
Fortunata is light and sublime. Unlike her sisters and The Dog Woman, she does not use
violence in order to assert her power. She does not punish her husband for the predestined
faith that was forced upon her, she simply flees the wedding. She makes a career out of her
dancing, by using a tool that was denied to her before by her father. By rebelling against her
fathers plans for her, she claims the power and independence which she was deprived of. She
tells Jordan that she ran out of the church and then took a boat and sailed round the world
earning my living as a dancer (STC: 95)
Fortunata is the only of her sisters that has a name, the others are generic known as princesses
and can be differentiated in the order of birth. Like the Dog Woman, her name is symbolic,
her destiny is to be fortunate, her life is to be governed by good luck. She is an emblematic
princess, but unlike her counterparts, Snow- White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, she stands
for independence, power and strength. Breaking boundaries once again, Winterson gives
Fortunata a job, she teaches others how to dance, so that she can have autonomy and earn her
existence. During her time together with Jordan, Fortunata tells him stories about her former
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life, when she was confined to hide her desires and dreams. For a long time she dreamed of
being rescued by someone else, waiting passively for her good fortune to unfold that for
years she had lived in hope of being rescued; of belonging to someone else, of dancing
together. And then she had learned to dance alone, for its own sake and for hers. (STC: 99) If
in the original Grimms tale, to dance is viewed as an activity which supports marriage, in
Sexing the Cherry Fortunata has learned to dance on her own, leaving behind the passive
dreams of being someone elses possession. She no longer defines herself and her life by a
man, therefore when Jordan asks her to go with him, she refuses.
She is a source of knowledge not only for her students whom she teaches to dance, but also
for Jordan I stayed with Fortunata for one month, learning more about her ways and
something about my own. (STC: 99) Having a great amount of life experience and knowing
herself best, she does not feel the need to travel far away from the island. She has everything
that she needs there, she found her meaning in life, concluding the quest for the self long
before Jordan she did it (dancing) because any other life would have been a lie. She didnt
burn in secret with a passion she could not express; she shone.(STC: 60) Their
unconventional love story doesnt end with them living happily ever after since she doesnt
provide closure to Jordans quest. However she manages to remain a source of inspiration for
him by occupying his dreams. Her self- sustainability is obtained through her wilfulness of
finishing what she started and not compromising her work, that of teaching her pupils to
become points of light (STC: 72) for the possibility of love. She already has love in her life
and that is her tremendous passion for dancing.
Digging deeper in the novels layers, another figure arises and she is Artemis, the goddess of
hunting. She is introduced to the plot by Fortuna who tells Jordan the story of Orion and
Artemis. As like her others female counterparts, the Dog Woman and Fortunata, Artemis has a
strong independent spirit. Winterson keeps some elements of the myth true, as is the case of
the Twelve Dancing Princesses story. Artemis is the goddess of hunting, so in order to follow
her lifes greatest passion she begs her father Zeus to give her a bow and arrow and an island
of her own so that she could hunt. This is one of the first characteristics that she shares with
Fortunata, they both live on an island, hidden from the curious eye where they do what they
always dreamt of doing: one dances and the other one hunts. However, Artemiss choice of
sustaining herself is more manly and is comparable to The Dog Womans choice of destiny,
in this respect. All she wanted in her life was to hunt The goddess Artemis begged of her
father, King Zeus, a bow and arrows, a short tunic and an island of her own free from
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interference. She didn't want to get married, she didn't want to have children. She wanted to
hunt. Hunting did her good. (STC: 131)
Artemis longs for freedom and is not bothered by the solitude that comes with it, as long as
she holds the reigns of her faith. Even if other women joined her on the island, she cares little
for their company. However, her peaceful existence is about to change when Orion decides
that she is to become his wife, without being concerned if she agrees or not. He even goes as
far as rapping her in his attempt of overpowering her. Without any trace of remorse, Artemis,
like the Dog Woman and the eleven princesses kills him, her warrior instinct kicking in. Jan
Rosemergy sums up quite well Winterson s intention behind rewriting the classical myth:
Wintersons rewriting of the ancient myth of Artemis and Orion asserts again
womens freedom from the male oppression. Winterson's revision of the
Artemis and Orion myth dramatizes women's liberation from oppression. [. . .]
In creating a variant in which Artemis kills Orion for raping her, Winterson
transforms the myth into a paradigm not of women's victimization but of
women's ability to overcome victimization (Rosemergy 257).
Instead of remaining a victim, Artemis takes her revenge while standing for those whom
voices are not loud enough to be heard. She also poses as the alternative to marriage and
heterosexuality, by choosing a lonesome existence.
In Sexing the Cherry, the characters simply exceed their gender boundaries, as Lisa Moore
argues. They do it either through their enormous stature, both physical and spiritual, or
through their courage of leaving behind their prearranged future, and writing an improved
version of it.

The female voices leave behind what is expected of them and liberate

themselves of all the prejudice and the oppression. Instead of trying to be integrated in a
society where the norm is being male, they find their own private territories where they can
dance freely. By abandoning the fantasy provided by fairy tales and romances of a happily
ever after, Fortunata, the Dog Woman and Artemis become active forces, autonomous entities
that get the chance of being heard.

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Bibliography

Primary sources
Winterson, Jeanette. Sexing the Cherry. London: Vintage, 1990

Secondary sources
Fratii Grimm, Povestile Fratilor Grimm. Bucureti: Polirom, 2014
Moi, Toril, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London, 1985
Eisenstein, Hester. Contemporary Feminist Thought, London, 1984
Rosemergy, Jan. Navigating the Interior Journey: The Fiction of Jeanette Winterson." British
Women Writing Fiction. Ed. Abby, H., P. Werlock. 2000. XIV.
Moore, Lisa. Teledildonics: Virtual Lesbians in the Fiction of Jeanette Winterson. Sexy
Bodies: The Strange Carnalities of Feminism. Eds. Elizabeth Grosz and Elspeth Probyn.
London and New York: Routledge, 2002, pp. 104-127.

Online resources
http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/book/sexing-the-cherry/