Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

At Oxford, Jeanette realizes that there is rampant inequality in her college, and that the women in her class will in large part “have to educate [them]selves.” But it doesn’t matter, she says, because “books were everywhere and all we had to do was read them.” She discovers modern and contemporary feminist writers and feels she has found a “new Bible.” Despite the challenges and inequalities at Oxford, she takes refuge in the university’s “seriousness of purpose” and devotion to “the life of the mind.”

As Jeanette reads more and more widely, she begins to feel more connected to other lives across time, and her isolation lessens. She also begins to think about visiting Mrs. Winterson, and wonders whether she herself can make peace with their shared past in order to weather a journey home—she looks to literature to see if she can find the answer. She knows that the answer to “reconcil[ing her] life with itself” lies in love, but only in a “very dimly lit way.”

Jeanette writes to Mrs. Winterson to ask if she can come home for the holidays and bring a friend. Mrs. Winterson replies “yes,” which Jeanette thinks is “unusual.” Mrs. Winterson does not ask what her daughter has been up to, and Jeanette does not attempt to explain.

Jeanette arrives home with her platonic friend Vicky Licorish—Vicky is black, and Jeanette has “warned” Mrs. Winterson of this. Mrs. Winterson has asked her missionary friends who are “veterans of Africa” what “they”—meaning black people—eat, and for some reason her friends have told her “pineapples.” Jeanette writes that Mrs. Winterson was “not a racist,” and “would not hear slurs against anyone on the grounds of color or ethnicity.”

Mrs. Winterson makes a plethora of pineapple-themed meals for the girls’ first couple days in town—but eventually Vicky confesses that she doesn’t like pineapple. Mrs. Winterson then experiences a drastic change in mood, and becomes antagonistic toward the girls. Vicky and Jeanette are working as volunteers at a local mental hospital while they are in town, and feel that “the atmosphere [at the Winterson] home [is] crazier than anything at work.”

Mrs. Winterson refuses to talk to the girls for nearly a week, but as Christmas approaches, Mrs. Winterson’s mood seems to improve. One night, Vicky finds that her pillowcase has no pillow in it, and is instead stuffed with “religious tracts about the Apocalypse.”

When Jeanette walks in on her mother making egg custard in the kitchen and muttering darkly to herself about the nature of sin, Jeanette tells Vicky that it is time to leave and return to Oxford. The next morning, Jeanette announces their departure to Mrs. Winterson, who replies with the words “You do it on purpose.” Jeanette tells her mother goodbye, and leaves—she will never see Mrs. Winterson again.