I chapter

 

What is its structure?

The chapter is organized in 9 paragraphs to make better the reader understand the situation is set in the past or in the present or to underline the change of topic.

What happens?

The narrator provides a description of her family and of childhood.

In the first paragraph the narrator focuses the attention on her mother’s description, in particular about the relationship with her. There are also references of period, indeed the novelist lived the Cold War and McCarthyism.

In the second paragraph the narrator tells about her childhood and her adolescence which were very hard, indeed she was adopted. In addition her homosexuality, her mother’s behavior towards her, the sensation of inadequacy, of not to be loved and not to be understand made her life very hard.

In the third paragraph the novelist returns to present, the text deals with the phone call between the narrator and her mother after the publication of Jeanette Winterson’s book.

The  fourth paragraph deals with the narrator’s thoughts and feelings after the phone call.

In the fifth chapter there is a description of the Accrington’s terraced house where the narrator lives until she was 16.

The sixth chapter is very short and contains some information about Winterson’s Oranges are not the only fruit.

The others chapters return on the narrator’s childhood (her relationship with her mother, grandfather and God).

 

What is its function?

The chapter have the function to provide a general presentation of her family and her childhood’s routine.

 

Who are the characters?

The narrator (Jeanette-main character)

The adoptive mother (Connie-Mrs Winterson) and father

The narrator’s imaginary friend (Elsie)

The Grandad and his girlfriend

The Devil (is very frequent in all the books)

The “brother” Paul

 

What narrative techniques does Jeanette Winterson adopted?

The narrator uses a very simple language and sentences, she uses the first person narrator.

The start of the chapter makes the reader understand Mrs Winterson’s behavior towards Jeanette, indeed the use of “when” and not “sometime” or “one day”, in addition the narrator called her “mother” only at the beginning of the book, maybe to underline the broken of their relationship.

The sound of word increases the meaning , for example the use of word “not true” instead of “false” make the reader understand the difficulty and the hard childhood of the protagonist.

In the text the narrator inserts onomatopoeic sound for example : …The pips – more money in the slot…

to create an image of the situation on reader’s mind.

 

 

 

Historical events’s vocabulary

 

The Cold War consisted in a period of tension between the Western world’s powers (the USA and  NATO’s allies) and the East which is considered the communist world (the Soviet Union, its satellite states and allies). The Cold War began at the end of The Second World War in 1947 and finished in 1989.

McCarthyism is a political movement which took its name by the Wisconsin’s republican senator Joseph McCarthy. It consisted of persecutory attitude of anticommunism in the USA (1950-1954).

 

 

II chapter

 

What is its structure?

The II chapter is organized in 10 paragraphs and there is also a quotation of Engels’ The Condition of the English Working Class in England (1844).

 What happens?

 In chapter 2 the narrator describes Manchester where she was born. She provides a geographical, cultural, political and social description and she shows the love for this place.

She also told about its industrialization and the worker’s terrible conditions. She writes a lot of important writers were in Manchester like Charles Dickens, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Later Jeanette Winterson tells about her adoption and her family ( its conditions, its works, its  physical appearances and religion).

 

What is its function?

The function of the second chapter is to describe the town where the narrator was born and the meaning of this place in her life. The chapter is important because it sets the atmosphere.

 

Who are the characters?

The narrator (Jeanette-main character)

Mrs Winterson

Jeanette’s father

 

What narrative techniques does Jeanette Winterson adopted?

The narrator uses a very simple language and sentences, she uses the first person narrator.

The use of first person narrator take the novelist to writes about her personal judgement of Manchester.

From the title My Advice To Anybody Is: Get Born the narrator put the reader’s attention on alert indeed there is a imperative form. So in the writer’s opinion all people  sleeps in their life.

The narrator uses the direct speech and the suspension points.

 

Historical events’s vocabulary

 

The Peterloo Massacre was a protest in Manchester, on 16 August 1819, it was caused by working people’s bad condition

The Corn Laws consisted in the imposition of duties on the importation of agrarian product, they were introduced between 1815 and 1846 in the UK to protect landowners from competition.

 

Vocabulary

 

Quakerism is a protestant movement