Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Themes

Jeanette Winterson the writer and Jeanette the character are both keenly aware that life can often be stranger than fiction. In writing an autobiographical novel based heavily on her own experiences growing up as an adopted child in an evangelical household in a small, working-class English town, Jeanette Winterson the author blurs the line between the real and the unreal, the recorded and the invented, to communicate the emotional experience of her childhood. Though most…

Jeanette and her mother’s lives revolve around a religion that is evangelical, strict, and often fatalistic. While the church offers solace, community, and even fun to the young Jeanette, as she grows older and discovers her sexuality, the church becomes a place of hate, control, and fear. Even when Jeanette breaks free of the church, she cannot leave behind these vestiges of her religious upbringing, which prevent her from feeling at peace with who…

At the heart of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit lies the question of what constitutes a transgression against someone you love, and what it means to forgive someone who has transgressed against you. This question comes up again and again as the conflict between Jeanette and her willful (and often abusive) mother escalates. As their sins and slights against one another mount, the prospect of true forgiveness becomes more and more uncertain, and yet…