Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - COA Novel

Quick background on Oranges are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson: this is a memoir centered around a girl questioning her sexuality within the bounds of a conservative Christian family, and the Christian faith to which she is devoted. So not only is the protagonist, Jeanette Winterson, struggling with her mother’s (called “Mother” in the book) disapproval of her newly discovered identity, she must also grapple with the disapproval of her church, and what it would mean to abandon the community that she loves so dearly. 

Winterson’s masterful ability to capture the inner turmoil that coming of age often entails made the story particularly believable. In many ways parents, and in Jeanette’s case the church, provide their children with the very first example of what being a good adult means, so the novel begins during Jeanette’s childhood to demonstrate her willingness to internalize the beliefs of the community that surrounds her. This is when she first hears Mother refer to the dreaded “unnatural passions” between two unmarried women living together (Winterson 7) (this is definitely referring to homosexuality, but young Jeanette doesn't pick that up until her teenage years), and her general disgust for “heathens” (53) who are characterized as not following God’s word. In this way the intolerance that Jeanette is surrounded by as a child leads to internal turmoil as a teenager when she discovers that who she is, is not acceptable to the people who are most important to her.

I was also very impressed with the metaphors rampant in this novel, such as the oranges referenced in the title that pop up to describe Jeanette’s relationship to her mother and church. Oranges are constantly offered to Jeanette by Mother, often intended as a comfort but instead perceived by Jeanette as a symbol for faith, conformity, and Mother’s conditional love. For example, at one point Jeanette thinks

Demon fruit, passion fruit, rotten fruit, fruit on Sunday. Oranges are the only fruit,

recognizing that to Mother, oranges are the only acceptable fruit in the same way that Jeanette must emulate Mother’s values and beliefs to be accepted by her (28). So the moment that Jeanette realizes that “oranges are not the only fruit” is pivotal in her transition from adolescence to adulthood, where she realizes that Mother and the church don’t get to define who she is, and that growing into her identity doesn’t mean that she has to conform to their expectations of who she will become. In this way Winterson seeks to define coming of age as growth into individuality rather than an acceptance of the identity imposed on her by her community.