INVASION OF THE SYMBOLIC BY THE SEMIOTIC IN ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT: A KRISTEVAN ANALYSIS

Abstract

It can be argued that Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson’s debut novel, subverts the two main patriarchal institutions, the family and Church, by laying bare how they accommodate the motherly in their fatherly discourse. These subversions emerge especially in the problematic mother-daughter relationship, family and religion as a result of their confusing nature, centrality in the novel and formative effects on Jeanette’s life. The two main domains in the novel, which are the family and the Church, require further analysis as they are mingled with the mother-daughter relations, and Kristeva’s register theory would yield a deeper psychoanalytic insight into the family and Church. In “Stabat Mater,” Kristeva’s discussions of Virgin Mary as a “return of the repressed” and a subversion of the semiotic within the symbolic order of monotheistic religion can offer insight into the construct of the family and the Church. This study aims to find out workings of the family and Church in Oranges in the light of Kristevan register theory and the maternal in “Stabat Mater.” It is claimed that the family and Church entail the maternal at their paternal heart despite the mother’s efforts to protect and perpetuate their patriarchal discourse and role in the symbolic order. Invasion of the symbolic by the semiotic is noteworthy because it brings about problematizations of binary oppositions, totalizing truths and the myth of development, which is found in Bildungsroman genre, upon which patriarchal constructs and the symbolic order depend.