A Transgressive Story of the Flood: Jeanette Winterson’s Boating for Beginners
Holdsworth, Marie
(2009) English Text Construction — Vol. 2, n° 2, p. 173-184 (2009)
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Holdsworth, MarieUCLouvain
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Abstract
Jeanette Winterson’s overlooked revision of the biblical text of the Flood, Boating for Beginners (1985), epitomises postmodern narratives that question patriarchal and capitalist society by means of irony, parody and pastiche. Focusing on the theme of creation and re-creation, this article explores how — through several textual processes — discredit is brought on the biblical text and on the God figure, so as to reaffirm the power of creative writers. Yahweh, a subversive character, is allegedly the Creator, but quickly turns out to be Noah’s Frankenstein-like creation. Noah’s function as God’s maker and writer of Genesis furthermore mirrors the author’s own writing process. By using Feuerbach’s projection theory, I examine how, while the godhead is de-constructed, the status of the author is subversively reasserted.
Holdsworth, M. (2009). A Transgressive Story of the Flood: Jeanette Winterson’s Boating for Beginners. English Text Construction, 2(2), 173-184. https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.2.2.02hol (Original work published 2009)