Beyond Linearity: Love as a Transcendent Force in Jeanette Winterson's Quantum Narratives

ما وراء الخطية: الحب كقوة متعالية في السرديات الكمّية لجانيت وينترسون

Abstract

The present paper examines Sexing the Cherry and The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson as among the defining quantum narratives that challenge the traditional metaphysics and epistemology by making the natural and artistic categories to break down in the linear time structure. It preserves a place of possibility, fantasy, creative corporeality and consequently reinvents traditional notions of time, identity and love. At the heart of this query is the non-linearity of the temporality and the malleable and changeable nature of gender identity, where love is viewed as a transcendental power, that is beyond spatio-temporal limits. The discussion is based on theoretical abstractions that are based on the quantum physics and feminist philosophy, especially on agential realism (Barad, 1996) and cyborg theory (Haraway, 1985). It shows how Winterson narrations make use of the concept of intra-action to blur the lines between the self and the other, the past and the present and as such, undermine binary oppositions. This methodological approach involves relating literary scholarship to posthumanist theory to examine how the quantum narratives of Winterson are emancipatory practices that insist on a change of focus on thinking in rigid and hierarchical modes towards multiplicity, fluidity, and an integrative approach to being. What is also important about the study is the interdisciplinary approach that shows how the innovative narratives produced by Winterson are challenging the orthodoxies of time and identity, but also love and narration are introduced as the agencies of change.