1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ARGUMENTATIVE TEXT Thesis: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is an example of postmodern novel

2. Focus on the novel: structural analysis map
Notes: arguments in favor of the thesis
Product: Argumentative text

3. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
By Jeanette Winterson

4. LITERARY GENRE Memoir focus on emotions, feelings
unfold of the writer’s emotional life along her telling
 literature as finding place
association of ideas, without respecting chronology
pursuit of authenticity
 A Memoir is not an Autobiography!

5. EXPECTATIONS FROM THE TITLE
Why?  question  start from a problem, doubt
Be/Could  undefined subject  question for anyone
Happy  aim of all human-beings
Normal  standardization, suppression of individualism,
acceptance
The reader expects the novel to be about choices and their implications:
the influence of people’s opinion,
the pursuit of the aim,
the meaning of the choice…

6. DEDICATION To my three mothers:
C. Winterson  adoptive mother (upbrought Jeanette)
R. Rendell  literary mother (helped Jeanette with the re-discovery
of her past story)
A. S.  biological mother (object of Jeanette’s search)
Even if quite different from each other,
they were all fundamental figures for Jeanette

7. TRIBUTES STRUCTURE Thanks to friends, editors, supporters,
who believed in Jeanette and supported her
STRUCTURE
Fifteen chapters and a Coda

8. STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE CHAPTERS
TITLE: how does it introduce the content of the paragraph?
CONTENT: how is each chapter linked to the previous one?
c) CHARACTERIZATION: Jeanette vs Mrs. Winterson

9. FIRST CHAPTER The Wrong Crib
Wrong: idea of mistake, inadequacy, issue  introduction of the main
topic of the novel: adoption and life as an adopted child
SECOND CHAPTER My Advice To Anybody Is: Get Born
Advice to Anybody: literature as instrument for everybody
Get Born: “origin” as fundamental part of people’s story and identity
pursuing of happiness as objective for life
Development of the main topic introduced in the previous paragraph
THIRD CHAPTER In The Beginning Was The World
Quotation from the Bible: religious texts as basis of Jeanette’s education
and basis of Mrs. Winterson’s thought
Resumation of the binomia happiness-life, trough the comparison between Jeanette and her mother

10. FOURTH CHAPTER The Trouble With A Book…
Quotation from the chapter: Mrs. Winterson’s and Jeanette’s idea of
reading and literature: differences
between characters
Development of the content of the previous chapter: function and reading of books
FIFTH CHAPTER At Home
Home: “centre of gravity”, “place of order”, reference point
Jeanette’s discomfort at home  Jeanette’s discovery of an
alternative home: books
Another point of view about books: the emotional bond between book and reader

11. SIXTH CHAPTER Church
Church: second crucial setting of Jeanette’s life:
place of help, hope  it comforted Jeanette
hostile place (ex. exorcism)  made her reflect about
contradictions of love and religion
Description of another seminal place in Jeanette’s history
SEVENTH CHAPTER Accrington
Description of the small town, its inhabitants and shops
Wider portrait of the place in which Jeanette lived
EIGTH CHAPTER The Apocalypse
Apocalypse: reference to Mrs. Winterson’s belief about religion, meaning
of life and idea about death; meatphor for the discovery of
Jeanette’s omosexuality,a crucial event in her life
Resumation of two topics: religion and sexuality

12. NINETH CHAPTER English Literature A-Z
Books as “messages in bottles”, writers as friends, who could support Jeanette in her diffficulties
Further explanation about Jeanette’s conception of literature
TENTH CHAPTER This Is The Road
This is the road: (quotation from the previous chapter)
Application and admission to Oxford and reflection about the role of women in society
ELEVENTH CHAPTER Art and Lies
Art: double reference to Jeanette’s university career and to her reflections
about literature as art-form
Lies: reference to biases by the university tutor against Jeanette and
women and by Mrs Winterson against Vicky and Jeanette
Development of the previous chapter, regarding life at University

13. Intermission
Reflection about life and art, fighting against chronological time.
Jeanette’s predilection for imagination and emotions, not facts.
Another point of view about Art
TWELFTH CHAPTER The Night Sea Voyage
Night: darkness  a great, dark secret is unvealed and it has got
repercussions on Jeanette’s life and mood
Sea Voyage: reference to an episode of Jeanette’s life, metaphor of an
important discovery (sheep  drawer, treasure  certificate)
THIRTEENTH CHAPTER This Appointment Takes Place In The Past
Appointment: multiple references: love affair with Susie, research about
adoption with root, last meeting with the father and
appointment with her biological mother
Consequences of the discovery described in the previous chapter

14. FOURTEENTH CHAPTER Strange Meeting
Meeting between Jeanette and her biological mother
Strange: mix of multiple emotions felt by Jeanette
Description of the crucial appointment, anticipated in the previous chapter
FIFTEENTH CHAPTER The Wound
Wound: mark, that has got different meanings to differnt people.
Both Mrs Winterson, Jeanette and Anne were wounded
Jeanette reflects on her vojage trough time and finally feels at home
CODA
Information about the following meetings between Jeanette and Ann, reflection about maternity and love,
Determination to face the future

15. CHARACTERIZATION Jeanette Winterson: Mrs. Winterson:
She is the narrator as well as the protagonist;
The reader knows her trough her most private feelings , thoughts and trough the account of some meaningful episodes of her life;
The reader takes part in her sufference and troubles;
Mrs. Winterson:
The reader knows her trough Jeanette’s description  subjective portrait
Information about her ideas, life-style and physical-appearance are provided, as well as numerous quotations she liked
The attitude of the reader towards her is changable: on one side he feels compassion, on the other side he criticizes her because of her eccessive hardness

16. MAP

17. NOTES: ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR
Postmodern novels:
Open structure: no chain of causation between chapters
 conjectures by the reader
resumption of the same theme/concept/idea in different chapters
2. Quotations
3. Absence of absolute truths
4. Mixture of topics, registers, languages
Memoir:
1. association of ideas, without respecting chronology
2. focus on emotions, feelings
3. unfold and sharing of ideas with the reader
 chance to fill the gaps in the past

18. ARGUMENTATIVE TEXT
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir by Jeanette Winterson, published in 2011.
Since it is a memoir, the reader expects the writer to look at her past and bring it back to life in the light of her present, using the device of the first person narrator.
To tell the truth, the speaking voice retraces the seminal events of her life (causes and steps of adoption, discovery of her homosexuality, pull-out of her parents’ home, registration at Oxford University, search and meeting of her biological mother) adding her reflections, emotions and regrets about the matter of reflection.
The first thing the reader notes is, facts are not told following a chronological but a mental order (it is one of the main differences between memoir and autobiography): there is no chain of causation between chapters; on the contrary the reader is asked to find connections between sections, even if they are not in a row.
It seems as if each reader was asked to path his own way inside the text: it follows that there are so many possible paths and connections as the readers (my personal analysis of the novel is synthetized in the map).

19. The peculiarity is typical of postmodern novels in which, according to Feyerabend’s famous quotation, “the only absolute truth is: there are no absolute truths”. Each interpretative hypothesis of the text has got the same value and none of them is absolutely TRUE.
The writer herself, in the coda of the memoir affirms: “I had to know the story of my beginnings but I have to accept that this is a version too.
It is a true story but it is still a version”, that is, every time you remember, you look at the past from the current perspective
(a subjective, many-sided, dynamic perspective) and you always got different feelings and versions.
Since there is no truth, no objectivity,
the writer focuses her attention on emotions, appealing to subjectivity, involving the reader and making up an intimate, silent dialogue with him.
Each word, each reflection, may mean or evocate something different in the reader’s mind:This is memoir and this is postmodernism!
An infinitive range of interpretations and approaches to life.

20. The theme is the essence of the whole memoir, because Jeanette’s reflection (and, as a consequence, her memoir) starts with her desire of pursuing happiness, according to her love for life, even if it is difficult.
Each chapter is an argument in favor of Jeanette’s vision of the world:
her conception of Literature (ch. 4, 7, 9, 11) , Home (ch. 2, 5, 15), Identity (ch. 1, 2, 12), Life (ch. 4, 13, 14, 15), her interest in the contradictions of the world (love, religion, history, society ch.2,6, 10,11) and last but not least, the contrast between her world and Mrs. Winterson’s one (ch. 1, 2, 8).
As you can see, there are some key words that often figure in the lines: wound, loss, love, happiness, trouble, sinn. It seems as if they formed an oxymoron but it fits with the complexity of life and it is another typical aspect of postmodernism.
Furthermore, the memoir is full with different kinds of quotations: biblical (from the Apocalypse), literary (from Oranges Is Not The Only Fruit, The Condition of the English Working Class by Engels, To his Coy Mistress by Marvell, The Awful Rowing Toward God by Anne Sexton) or personal (Mrs. Winterson’s “The Devil led us to the wrong crib”, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls” and “She is a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead and a fault to nature”). Quotations are typical of postmodernism as well as the mixture of different registers and languages (from the slang and the language of the working class to the literary references), since they try to express the complexity of the world, that is, quoting Jeanette’s words in chapter one, “unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control”.

21. The writer herself confesses, “When we tell a story it is a version, but never the final one; we offer the silence as much as the story and perhaps we hope that the silences will be heard by someone else, and the story can continue”. There is no demand to preserve a truth as it happens in the traditional novel; rather the objective of the writer is to reach and involve as many people as possible, while trying to dull her pain and pursue happiness, since “as long as I had words, images and stories for who I could be and how I could feel, then I wasn’t lost”.

22. CREDITS Desirèe Mosca VA