Multiple Discourses, Multiple Meanings: Jeanette Winterson's Language of Multiplicity and Variety. Agnieszka Miksza

back to magical realism, the critic mentions “strong connections between magical realism and poetry as a rule” (30) also emphasizing the difference between the magical realism of Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Winterson’s The Passion. The author of the article compares Winterson’s text with David Jones’s In Parenthesis (1937) which has been defined as “a poem (largely prose in form)” and “experimental in form being written partly in prose and partly in free verse” (qtd. in Edelson). T.S. Eliot claimed that this book told the story of “the experience of one soldier in the War of 1914–1918” (qtd. in Edelson 31) whereas Jones himself stated: “I have only tried to make shape in words, using as data the complex of sights, sounds, fears, hopes, apprehensions, smells, things exterior and interior, the landscape and paraphernalia of that singular time and of those particular men” (qtd. in Edelson 31). Thus, as the critic concludes, his aim is not to describe facts but to “recreate emotional responses to the experience of the Great War” (31). Comparing Jones to Winterson, Maria Edelson highlights the similarities between these two writers and claims that Jones’s words regarding his book may also be applied to Winterson’s The Passion when it comes to her approach to facts concerning Napoleon’s times and Venice, which illustrates an attempt to make “a shape in words”.

      Maria Edelson also compares other stylistic features of Jones’s and Winterson’s writing such as repetition and use of pauses to emphasize the fact that both of these texts are novels “fusing prose with poetry”. The conclusion reads

      The significant role of poetry in Winterson’s book provides sufficient reason for arguing that it is a kind of “poem in prose” which has numerous links with the more usual type of novel and with realism including its magic variety, but its relation to reality is like that of a poem with its “licentia poetica” which transforms life into “a shape created by words”. (32)

      The conclusion of the critic is that categorizations of Winterson’s work cannot be so easily made and it does not have to be defined as “magic realism” (33).

      Although the term “magic realism” is dubious in the case of The Passion, it will be used in my descriptions of Winterson’s narrative technique. However, I would like to emphasize that by the term “magic realism” I mean “the ordinary treasure” or the miraculous.

      There are numerous elements of magical realism in the novel and it is inextricably linked with the refrain “I’m telling you stories. Trust me” (5, 13, 160). As far as the supernatural elements in the novel are concerned, they are based ←47 | 48→on stories told by narrators, gossip or legends, for example, Henri listens to stories told by Patrick, who claims to have seen goblins who were talking about treasure stolen from fairies. Patrick also told him about shoes which were not bigger than a nail but he was still able to put them on. After re-telling this story, Henri says that he did not know whether to believe him or not. Then the refrain of the novel appears “I’m telling you stories. Trust me” (5, 13, 160). He tells a different story about the figure of St. Mary which moved under the influence of women’s prayers and remained unmoved by men’s prayers. This part of The Passion illustrates an example of magical realism, here employing the method of literalization, that is, the figurative expression “to be moved by something” gains a literal meaning; this is divided by the refrain “I’m telling you stories. Trust me” (5, 13, 160). The refrain reminds the reader of the fact that this novel contains numerous stories, but at the same time, being a refrain, constitutes an element of poetry. The meaning of the refrain is ambiguous, in that these two sentences seem to contradict each other, but probably refers to the term “magical realism”, where “magical” pertains to “I’m telling you stories” and “Trust me” to realism.

      The other excerpt of the novel in which the story about supernatural elements is told is Villanelle’s description of Venice, which she observes as being inhabited by souls taking care of their relatives (78). She comments on this fact, referring to our ancestors, who are important because they are what we belong to, leading her to reflect on time; this is reminiscent of the reflections present in Four Quartets from “Burnt Norton” “Time present and time past/Are both perhaps present in time future/And time future contained in time past./ If all time is eternally present/All time is unredeemable. (IV). She claims that without the past and the future, the present is only partial and time is infinitely present (78). Villanelle also remarks that she can see the future glittering on the water and can see the distorted reflections of her face, which are what she may become. Asking about her future, she pronounces the refrain “Between fear and sex the passion is” which evokes Eliot’s The Hollow Men “Between the idea /And the reality/Between the motion/ And the act/Falls the Shadow”.