View source for Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

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''[[Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit]]'' is Jeanette Winterson's somewhat autobiographical [[Coming of Age]] novel about a young adopted girl discovering she's a lesbian in a fanatically Christian community. It was later adapted as a [[Miniseries]] by the [[BBC]].

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* [[Adaptation Name Change]]: Jeanette is renamed Jessica in the TV adaptation, possibly to reduce the autobiographical elements of the story.
* [[Adults Are Useless]]: The only adult who even tries to help the protagonist is  {{spoiler|Mrs. Jewsberry}} who  {{spoiler|has possibly non-consensual and definitely underage sex with her.}}
* [[Allegory Adventure]]: The fairy tales that pepper the text usually mirror Jeanette's life in some fashion.
* [[Arc Words]]:
* [[Author Avatar]]: Quite obviously Jeanette.
* [[Biblical Motifs]]: Tons of them, including: casting the first stone, the walls of Jericho, Lot's wife, "to the pure all things are pure" (Titus 1.15), the number seven, and the names of the chapters.
* [[Butch Lesbian]]: Kinda. Jeanette says she sees no similarity between herself and men -- except that she always wears trousers. In the miniseries this is averted: she almost never wears trousers and yet is attracted to the femme Melanie.
* [[Coming Out Story]]
* [[Cool Old Lady]]: Elsie
* [[Double Standard Rape (Female on Female)]]: Implied with the interactions between  {{spoiler|Jeanette and Mrs. Jewsberry}}.
* [[Girls Love]]: With Melanie and later Katy.
* [[Holier Than Thou]]: Melanie's  {{spoiler|husband}} has this attitude. So does Jeanette's mother and most of the congregation members.
* [[Jane Eyre]]: It's Jeanette's mother's favorite book. Later we find out that  {{spoiler|her mother [[Fan Wank|changed the ending]] so that Jane marries St. John.}}
* [[Lipstick Lesbian]]: In the miniseries.
* [[Mentor Occupational Hazard]]:  {{spoiler|Elsie}}
* [[Motif]]: The eponymous oranges. Also the rough brown pebble.
* [[Nightmare Fetishist]]: Jeanette was like this as a child.
* [[No Sex Allowed]]: This seems to be the rule in Jeanette's community. Her parents adopted her to avoid having sex. 
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Jeanette for most of the story.
* [[Religion Is Wrong]]: Or at least fundamentalism is. 
* [[Spiteful Spit]]
* [[Title Drop]]: Towards the end, when Jeanette's mother winds up with a ton of pineapple and everybody at the church eats lots of pineapple dishes for a while.
* [[Tomboy and Girly Girl]]: Though all the other lesbians in the miniseries are [[Lipstick Lesbian|LipstickLesbians]], the two who run the sweet shop are a butch/femme couple.
* [[The Fundamentalist]]: Jeanette's mother.
* [[Theme Naming]]: The chapters are named for the first eight books of the Christian [[The Bible|Bible]].

{{reflist}}
[[Category:Non-Fiction Literature]]
[[Category:School Study Media]]
[[Category:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit]]
[[Category:Queer Media]]
[[Category:Gay and Lesbian Fiction]]
[[Category:Literature of the 1980s]]
[[Category:Live-Action TV of the 1990s]]
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:TV Series]]