Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

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Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Written by:	Jeanette Winterson
Central Theme:
Synopsis:	Jeanette Winterson's somewhat autobiographical Coming of Age novel about a young adopted girl discovering she's a lesbian in a fanatically Christian community.
Genre(s):	Semi-autobiography
First published:	March 21, 1985

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.

Tropes used in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit include:

• 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 Mrs. Jewsberry who 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 Jeanette and Mrs. Jewsberry.
• Girls Love: With Melanie and later Katy.
• Holier Than Thou: Melanie's 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 her mother changed the ending so that Jane marries St. John.
• Lipstick Lesbian: In the miniseries.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: 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 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 Bible.