Mr. Jack Winterson Character Analysis

Jeanette Winterson’s adoptive father. A manual laborer all his life, he was the one responsible for doling out the physical punishments Mrs. Winterson assigned to Jeanette for her many “transgressions.” Though he was complicit in abusing Jeanette, Mr. Winterson too lived under the imposing shadow of his first wife, Mrs. Winterson, until her death. He later remarries a woman named Lillian, at whom he frequently gets angry and throws household objects, such as Mrs. Winterson’s Royal Albert china. After Mr. Winterson’s death, Jeanette, when cleaning out his house, finds documents relating to her adoption, which she uses to embark on a search for her birth parents.