OANCEA MIHAELA CRISTINA - THE GALAXY WITHIN: SPACE, QUANTUM PHYSICS AND THE FANTASY OF
BODILY UNITY IN JEANETTE WINTERSON’S GUT SYMMETRIES
(pag. 30-49)
Throughout this paper, I have directed my attention to Winterson’s “anxiety of limit”. One of the first aspects that the idea of border evokes is spatiality: countries, cities, houses are bounded systems, and the body can also be interpreted as a topos. In Gut Symmetries, Winterson draws parallels between the human body and ultimately, the cosmos. I will argue that such correspondences allow Winterson to fashion a sense of unity and to transcend gender binarism, but also to question power relations through the discourse of Imperialism. Gut Symmetries moves spatial representation further, to an encompassing vision of the body: the references to quantum physics and superstring theory, blended with Tarot card readings and Kaballah pave the way for a vision of the ultimate border transgression: the hermaphrodite.