Ethical Concerns of Jeanette Winterson as Shown in The Gap of Time, a Rewriting of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Winter's tale, a tragic-comedy in the 17th century. Though the settings are transplanted from the ancient pastoral lands of Sicily and Bohemia into contemporary London, Paris and New Bohemia City of America, and the Shakespearean kings, queens, princes, princesses and courtiers arc changed into modern professional people like bankers, chanteuses, game designers and car salesmen, the basic plots and ethical concerns of the adaptive novel arc nearly identical to those of the Shakespearean play. As far as the ethical dimension of The Gap of lime is concerned, it reveals Winterson's ethical concern, that is, bad ethical environment leads to the prevalence of animal factor of human beings over human factor, which damages the ethical harmony of human relationships. It is only love and forgiveness that redress the unhealthy ethical environment, depress animal factors in human nature, repair the ethical human relationships and finally cure the ethical trauma of the main characters.