Classic Contemporary Relevance part 3: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson


So far I've talked solely about a woman's family being the more positive presence & influence. But what of the inverse being the case? What of religious repression of sexuality, for the sake of both family and community? Jeanette Winterson's 1985 novel Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit sees the protagonist, a teenage girl sharing the author's name Jeanette, growing up in a Pentecostal Evangelist community and discovering her lesbianism, which strains her relationship with her mother. Her newly discovered love for the other young woman in her life is eventually repressed for the sake of her family and community, which she eventually returns to even after moving away – despite still being branded a “sinner” by them.

    Ironically the bleakest ending of the three texts might be the most comforting to a contemporary reader: Here any disturbing connotations of sexual freedom with sin are not perpetuated by the writer or narrator, but by other characters surrounding the protagonist. Rossetti and Winterson both come from Christian backgrounds, yet where Rossetti appears to fear free sexual expression in her poem, Winterson yearns for it. The difficulties of balancing indulgence, fulfilment and discipline have been transcended through either imagination or spiritual devotion in the previous two texts. Here they are not transcended. Jeanette is practically leashed back to her mother, and this is presented as neither negative nor positive: It is simply what happens.

    Homophobia is undeniably present still, and is never more debilitating than when it comes from within one's own family. As it happens it was only last week when I shared a long text conversation with my lesbian friend who was afraid to try at love because of her religious parents. She hadn't read this book, but if she ever does, as I have recommended her to if only for a you-are-not-alone-comfort, she might be struck by the rupturing irony of one of the book's last lines of dialogue, where Jeanette's conservative mother has just traded in her old piano for an electric organ: “I like to move with the times.” God save us all indeed. The howl for alignment echoes from our books then to our radios now, and will for some time yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMzY_KQIKjU


[originally submitted to Wordpress for grading on the 17th of May, 2020]


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