Jeanette Winterson’s Encounter with History: The Daylight Gate as an Example of Historiographic Metafiction

Abstract

Postmodern rejection of objective knowledge and of the belief in language to provide a faithful representation of reality lead to the reappraisal of various notions including history and bring a different approach to its relation to literature. Coined by Linda Hutcheon, the term historiographic metafiction defines an experimental form of historical novel which problematizes the conventional notions of historiography. Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate focuses on the famous Pendle Witch Trial and develops a counter-history by employing the perspectives of those whose stories are excluded for ideological reasons. This paper aims to analyse The Daylight Gate as an example of historiographic metafiction in terms of its blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction and its deconstruction of the monolithic nature of history through alternative voices. This study also explores the ways in which Winterson demonstrates the subjectivity of historical discourse as well as its textual and constructed nature.