Narrator's Religion and Identity in Written on the Body
This essay examines the unnamed, genderless narrator of Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body through the lens of religion and personal belief. Drawing on two key church scenes, the essay argues that the narrator's ambivalent relationship with Christianity — attending services for nostalgia rather than faith, and deflecting the minister's words with sarcasm — reveals a psychologically complex character who is neither fully detached nor fully believing. The analysis suggests that the narrator's ironic distance functions as self-protection rather than genuine indifference, complicating any simple reading of the character as cynical or emotionally unavailable.
- Introduction: The Narrator's Ambiguous Identity: Narrator's unknown gender, bisexuality, and religious traits
- Attending Church Without Belief: Narrator attends church for nostalgia, not faith
- Sarcasm as Self-Defense in the Church Scene: Sarcasm toward minister reveals emotional self-protection
- Conclusion: A Complicated Spiritual Portrait: Narrator shown as nostalgic yet spiritually detached
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The essay builds a careful, evidence-driven character analysis from specific textual quotations, grounding every claim in the novel itself.
- It presents two competing interpretations of the narrator's sarcasm and weighs them against each other before arriving at a reasoned conclusion, demonstrating critical thinking rather than assertion.
- The paper maintains focus on a single, well-defined analytical angle — religious ambivalence as a window into personality — without overreaching its evidence.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models close reading: it selects short, precise quotations and unpacks their implications at length rather than summarizing plot. The analysis of the minister's phrase "Jesus will have his way with you!" (Winterson 152) is a strong example — a single line yields multiple layers of interpretation about the narrator's psychology and defenses.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by establishing what is unknown about the narrator (name, gender) and then pivots to what can be known through their behavior. A first body paragraph handles the nostalgia visit to church; a second handles the sarcasm episode and offers a binary interpretation before resolving it. A brief concluding paragraph ties both scenes together into a unified characterization. Works Cited follows MLA format.
Introduction: The Narrator's Ambiguous Identity
The gender and name of the narrator in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body are never made explicit to the reader. Despite this lack of information, certain character traits can still be ascertained from the text. For example, the narrator has at some point both a male lover, Bruno, and a female lover, Louise, indicating that they are bisexual. In discussing the relationship with the male Bruno, the narrator also explores their relationship with religion. Through the narrator's understanding of religion and their own level of belief, the reader can discern meaningful indications of the narrator's larger personality.
Attending Church Without Belief
At one point in the novel, the narrator describes deciding to go to church one Sunday. He or she says, "Not because I wanted to be saved, nor because I wanted solace from the cross. Rather, I wanted the comfort of other people's faith" (Winterson 150). This passage reveals several things about the narrator. First and foremost, it suggests that the narrator was reared in the Christian faith — either within a Christian family or through some other early exposure to Christianity. Whatever the case, the narrator's present self does not believe in Christianity. He or she does not accept the Bible or the stories told by members of the clergy. However, the narrator still sees something of value in the beliefs of others.
It is as though the narrator is fashioning a personal substitute for religion — one grounded in the inspiration and moral example it offers rather than in doctrine. The church functions as a symbol of childhood and simplicity for the narrator, rather than as a genuinely religious space. This nostalgic relationship with Christianity sets up the more revealing episode that follows.
Conclusion: A Complicated Spiritual Portrait
The narrator's relationship with religion and the church scene carry significant implications for understanding the character's larger personality. This narrator has no active faith in Christianity yet still attends services out of nostalgia. At the same time, he or she refuses to engage sincerely with the minister's words, retreating instead into sarcasm. Together, these details paint the narrator as a deeply complicated figure — one who is neither entirely detached nor capable of honest belief, and who uses irony as a shield against feelings that have not entirely disappeared.
Works Cited
Winterson, Jeanette. Written on the Body. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.