지넷 윈터슨의 글쓰기 경계선과 다시쓰기: 『몸에 새겨지다』와 『무게』를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper shows Jeanette Winterson’s boundaries of writing and re-writing in Written on the Body and Weight. The point is that there are no boundaries in her writing; if they are, she is trying to be beyond them by re-writing and repetition. Her re-writing and repetition express desire by keeping language in motion and rushing it forward. She believes the power of stories to shape our desire, to defend us against the weight of loss, to move us to love. So she realizes that love demands expression in Written on the Body, and desire demands expression in Weight. In Written on the Body, the narrator we can not make sure his or her gender explores his/her lover, Louise. Louise, the loss Winterson represents, is the incitement for narrative, for the language based on the desire to replace loss. In Weight, Atlas, who assumes the impossible burden of the world with infinite gentleness, abandons it. Atlas is Winterson herself, and the burden of the world is the weight of her writing. But Atlas realizes that the boundaries of writing are in his inner mind, he can make decisions, and he can be free far from the limitation of language. To fill up for the loss of lover and the lack of language, Winterson uses the repetition and the reiteration. Written on the body has ‘It’s the clichés that cause the trouble’ and Weight has ‘I want to tell the story again’. Both texts also have ‘Written on the body is a secret code, only visible in certain lights.’ This reiteration compulsion is so ubiquitous in Winterson’s texts. Winterson experiments language variously. Weight is retelling the myth of Atlas and Heracles and Written on the body translates medical language into lyric one. Her language revives Louise, and then we can ‘feel’ the text Written on the body. As a writer, she seeks to find a new language that is reworked as reiterations of desire.