What Is The Meaning Of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson is a coming of age story about a young girl, Jeanette, discovering her identity, questioning her religious beliefs and sexuality. Throughout Jeanette’s development, her mother tries to raise Jeanette to be her ideal, extremely religious, destined to be a missionary. When Jeanette ultimately rejects her mother’s ideals, both of religion and of sexuality, her mother rejects her. The symbol of oranges, specifically oranges provided by Jeanette’s mother to others, represents how she sees the world, with a narrow-minded view and refusing to even acknowledge that anything other than her view exists. Fruits, specifically oranges, that Jeanette’s mother gives to Jeanette are a symbol of her mother’s narrow-minded view of the world and refusal to accept anything that doesn’t fit within her world view. In Exodus, Jeanette is in the hospital because she went deaf. Her mother, instead of visiting her often sends Jeanette oranges. “‘The only fruit,’ she always said. Fruit salad, fruit pie, fruit for fools, fruited punch. Demon fruit, passion fruit, rotten fruit, fruit on Sunday. Orange are the only fruit” (29). Her mother was not the one to send Jeanette to the hospital because

Therefore, Jeanette ending up in the hospital shatters her perception of this event as it no longer fits in her world view. Jeanette’s mother rarely visits her because accepting that she was wrong and that something doesn’t fit her perspective of how things