Reading Between The Lines: Exploring Foreground, Background And Viewpoints In Winterson's Narrative.

The novel Sexing the Cherry which is selected for analysis is written by British writer Jeanette Winterson. She is known for her innovative narrative style and bold explorations of gender, sexuality, myth and identity. In this research paper the researcher will analyse a passage from Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the cherry, by applying Wolfgang Iser's reader-response literary theory. The passage will be analysed through the lens of Iser's hermeneutical concepts like foreground and background and wandering viewpoint. The analysis will demonstrate how Winterson's narrative compels the reader to join in the process of meaning-making. The paper argues the reader's meaning making process is actively structured because of the nonlinear narration, temporal fluidity and the mythic-historical layering occurring in the narrative. The paper will discuss how the foreground and background contrast each other and will study its effect on the reader's interpretation. The readers are prompted to move between perspectives, times and continually revisit interpretations because of the mechanism of the wandering viewpoint. The paper will shed a light on how the narrative destabilizes a fixed perspective and demands the reader's participation in stitching together multiple vantage points. By employing Iser's theoretical framework, the paper asserts that there is a continuous negotiation between the immediacy and distance which the reader has to undergo in order to reach meaning/s which are open to multiple interpretations.