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Why be happy when you could be normal?

Chapter 1 - The wrong crib

What happens in the chapter?

In the chapter the narrator provides the reader important information about her life.

First of all she introduces the figure of her mother and makes up a clear idea of the difficult relationship between the members of her adoptive family and their life-style. She also thinks about the meaning of being adopted and reflects on writing and being a writer.

What is its function?

 It is an introductive and informative chapter. It immediately involves the reader unvealing the most significant and private aspects of the narrator's life. 

What are the main characters and info?

The main characters are the protagonist, Jeanette Winterson and her adoptive mother, Mrs Winterson.

The most important information are:

Jeanette was adopted by Pentecostal parents but she didn't go on well with them, in particular with her mother;

her life inspired her first novel Oranges are not the only fruit;

in her opinion, being a writer is not a choice or an act of will;

 adoption made Jeanette's life really hard: it seemed to her as if she had to live someone else's life and she could not love or even believe that someone could love her

What is the narrative technique?

The novel is told by a 1^st person narrator. The narrator uses some flash-backs to tell the reader the episode of the phone box and a memory of hers.

Chapter 2 - My advice to anybody is: get born

What happens in the chapter?

In the chapter the narrator speaks about her native city: Manchester. She describes her history, landscape and peculiarities. Then she goes on speaking about her adoption, providing information about her birth and adoptive parents. In particular, she reflects on the pair "happiness-life"

What is its function?

It is a descriptive and argumentative chapter. The narrator wants to prove the reader that your story (the place you are born into, its history, your family's ideas and customs) affect your identity and personality.

What are the main characters and info?

The main characters are still Jeanette and her mother.

The main info are:

Jeanette's judgment about Manchester analyzing its contradictions: it produced wealth without well-being, it was utilitarian and utopian, it inspired philosophers like Engels and Marx  and it is full with industries and houses;

Jeanette's sense of belonging to the working-class, because of her parents' origins;

the basis of Jeanette's education: contempt for bodies, devotion to the principles of the Bible

Jeanette's love for life and its multiple possibilities, her desire for escape and freedom

What is the narrative technique?

The novel is told by a 1^st person narrator

Massacro di Peterloo violenta repressione, operata dalle autorità di Manchester il 16 agosto 1819, di una manifestazione popolare contro il corn laws e per la riforma elettorale. Temendo lo scoppio di disordini, la polizia a cavallo fu lanciata contro la folla radunata a St. Peter's Field per assistere a un comizio. Vi furono undici morti e centinaia di feriti

Corn laws leggi sull'importazione e l'esportazione dei cereali in Gran Bretagna. Particolarmente note sono le disposizioni del 1815, modificate nel 1822, che limitavano l'importazione del grano. Contro queste leggi protezioniste l'agitazione popolare crebbe soprattutto dopo il 1825, finché, grazie anche all'azione dell'Anti-Corn-Law League (Lega per l'abolizione della legge sul grano) capeggiata da R. Cobden, non si giunse alla revoca di tali leggi nel 1846 da parte del primo ministro Robert Peel.

Quaccherismo setta religiosa nata in Inghilterra nel XVII secolo con il calzolaio Fox, secondo la quale la verità è conoscibile grazie allo Spirito Santo attraverso la penitenza, la personale esperienza religiosa e il perdono. Al servizio militare sostituiscono la beneficienza e non ritengono necessarie cerimonie né la lettura della Sacra Scrittura.

Socialismo ideologia che mira all'uguaglianza di tutti i cittadini sul piano giuridico, economico e sociale, sopprimendo almeno in parte classi sociali e proprietà privata

Capitalismo promuove: privatizzazione di capitale e risorse, libera iniziativa economica