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Abstract
In
the critical reception of Jeanette Winterson’s oeuvre, scholars
have paid particular attention to the postmodern features of
Winterson’s work and the representation of lesbian love and desire
that unsettle heterosexual hegemony. It can be argued that
Winterson’s work has been mostly read with the lens of postmodern,
poststructuralist feminism and queer critical theory. This paper aims
to offer a reading of Winterson’s retelling of Atlas myth from an
existentialist point of view. Weight is published in “The Myths”
series launched in 2005 by Canongate Books, along with other modern
retellings of classical myths by renowned authors such as Margaret
Atwood, Ali Smith, and Alexander McCall Smith. Winterson’s work, in
her own words is the “cover story” of the myth of Atlas. In Greek
mythology, condemned to eternal punishment for rebelling against the
Olympian gods, Atlas, the Titan son of earth and sky, carries the
world on his shoulders. After giving a brief overview of
existentialism as a philosophical movement, this paper explores
Winterson’s modern retelling of the myth with regard to
existentialist concepts of freedom, burden, fate, alienation and
anxiety.
Keywords:
Existentialism, retelling, classical myths, Atlas, choice,
responsibility, freedom, fate
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