The Celebration of Lesbian Female Psyche in Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit: A Critical Study

Ritushmita Sharma, Porishmita Buragohain

doi:10.17762/pae.v58i1.1032

Abstract

Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) taps into the increasing popular interest for exploring the ways in which gender and sexual identities are constructed in the mainstream British culture. Often been considered an autobiographical and a bildungsroman, this book has successfully dealt with the protagonist’s self-development from infancy to adulthood and her search for individuality through a series of formative experiences. These experiences, however, encapsulates her struggle against—the oppression of religion of the asphyxiating society where she lives, in her sexual initiation, in her subsequent isolation, and finally in her success to move away from oppression to freedom and independence. Thus this research paper is an attempt to excavate how Winterson has challenged the prescribed set of attitudes of a society (especially the religious ones) towards sexuality through the experiences of a character who experiences her lesbian identity within a closed society that rejects same-sex love and tendencies. Moreover, this paper also aims to redirect our focus towards the breaking down of traditional clear-cut boundaries with respect to the artificial construction of gender and identity.

Highlights

A cursory glance at the theoretical underpinnings of the studies on Gender and Sexuality would unveil that human beings are classified into the categories of male or female, the ideas related to their identification as masculine or feminine is not predetermined but socially formulated
Conclusion: the novel offers an alternative to the traditional representation of the lesbians, a tradition which cast the lesbians as ‘deviant’
The novel demonstrates that gender is not a fixed category but a social construction and reveals that it is the intolerant and one-sided approaches to life as performed in educational institutions, religious institutions, and household or by extension the community which forms the basis of oppression

Summary

Introduction

A cursory glance at the theoretical underpinnings of the studies on Gender and Sexuality would unveil that human beings are classified into the categories of male or female, the ideas related to their identification as masculine or feminine is not predetermined but socially formulated. Abrams in his the glossary of Literary Terms defines the term ‘queer’ which was originally used in a derogatory sense, “used to stigmatize male and female same sex love as deviant and unnatural” (253).But since the early 1990s, the gays and the lesbians themselves have begun to accept the ideas related to ‘queer’ as not an invidious term but as a way of life This exploration of queer studies has been developed in the fictional works of British novelists such as Sarah waters, Hanif Kureishi, Jeanette Winterson etc. Which has lead to the increasing acceptance and recognition of gay and lesbian rights This present analysis aims to concentrate its focus on Jeanette Winterson’s novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit which appeared at a time when rightwing intellectuals were blaming the left-wing radicals and the 1960s sexual protest for the disruption of family values in the contemporary British societies. If I had a demon my weak point was Melanie, but she was beautiful and good and had loved me

Can love really belong to the demon?

Conclusion