What Happens To Jess In “Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit”?
The title of the novel and TV adaptation refers to an repeated comment by Jess’s (the main character’s) adopted mother, that “oranges are the only fruit.” The title thus stands for Jess’s rebellion, based on author Jeanette Winterson’s own, against her mother’s faith and its insistence on one way of thinking, seeing and living. At first Jess’s revolt is through imagination and stories; as she grows older she discovers a “different fruit” of a wholly forbidden kind; she falls in love with, and starts a relationship with, another girl. This is not Jess’s first lesbian experience (in fact the novel offers strong hints that the mother may have had the same inclination, and turned to evengelical religion partly to combat it) but it is the catalyst for furious scenes with her mother and other church members who attempt to force the “demon” out of her by violent means. Eventually Jess leaves home, and supports herself selling ice-creams until her writing career begins.
