InArt [Objects]: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery, Jeanette Winterson challengessociety's views on life by capturing the intricacies of artists and, inparticular, writers. She uses art as a theme to articulate her feelings aboutsociety and coaxes her readers into a realization of life. Her style is unusualwhen discussing society's unconscious attitude toward art; her ideas are criticaland individual.

Winterson, however, is not trying to drill into youthat you must love art or books, but rather to have an open mind toward them. Herprudence is displayed through her experiences with others. Winterson longs forthe reader to open up to her emotions in order to understand the ideas shepresents. Her essays reveal more than just the complexities of art andliterature, they explore the way society perceives the world.

Winterson'sessays use art as a reference for the reader to have a better perception of howsociety deals with not only art, but life. The only way to understand and findmeaning in her essays is simply to open yourself to her ideas. When reading abook, watching a movie, viewing art or listening to music, society at times feelsa sense of discomfort, irritation and distraction. Winterson writes, Better topretend art is dumb, or at least has nothing to say that makes sense to us. Ifart, all art, is concerned with truth, then a society in denial will not findmuch use for it.

We are simply avoiding encounters with art, with eachother, or with the world because of a culture we want to live in. Society as aresult separates and familiarizes everything they see as a so-called potentialthreat to their perfect world. To me this is what Winterson's essays are tryingto convey; her theme of art and literature is just a backdrop to a much largeridea: ourselves.