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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson is an English writer who has dealt with the topic of lesbianism and sexuality in her novels very often, and the highly acclaimed semi- autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) also focuses on representation of lesbian characters. The motif of lesbianism already brought up Virginia Woolf in her novel Orlando: A Biography but also in already mentioned Mrs. Dalloway, where Clarissa Dalloway has a relationship with Sally Seton. However, despite the protagonist is a lesbian the author herself does not agree with the fact that it is a lesbian fiction. Winterson said that she “never understood why straight fiction is supposed to be for everyone, but anything with a gay character or that includes gay experience is only for queers.” Not only are the themes of homosexuality and accepting oneself the core of the novel but also the theme of love. For Winterson love is something very special and it has been treated that way in all of her seven novels, Winterson even says: “love is a condition that is painful, but it is the cross we all have to bear, and this goes beyond overcoming prejudices against homosexuality, because love is held up as transcendent and unavoidable.”
The second part of the 20^th century was a period of the second wave of feminism, women won the fight for the suffragette, although they still fought for the same opportunities and social position as men had. The period after the World War II has gone through shift in attitudes in sexuality and gender. The sexual revolution in 1950s and 1960s and the effect of feminist movement changed the way men and women related to each other socially and culturally. Therefore, the book was well accepted even though it is revolting against the conventional heterosexual life and
family values. Winterson herself addressed in the introduction that the book openly engages in political debates and challenges the stereotypical family life; “Oranges is a threatening novel. It exposes the sanctity of family life as something of a sham; it illustrates by example that what the church calls love is actually psychosis and it dares to suggest that what makes life difficult for homosexuals is not their perversity but other people’s.”
The novel deals with themes of injustices between homosexual and heterosexual women, disposing prejudices about homosexuality, hetero-patriarchal society, and self-awareness and finding one’s own space. And as Elizabeth Russel states, the novel also explores “the concept of a normal sexuality and refuses the prejudice against loving the ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ sort of people.” It illustrates a love story between adolescent girl Jeanette and her lover Melanie, Jeanette does not understand what is wrong about loving someone of the same sex, however, the
religious society surrounding her strictly disagrees with her sexuality and they believe that she is possessed. When the pastor of the church where Jeanette goes to asks her: “Do you deny you love this woman with a love reserved for man and wife?” she replies: “No, yes, I mean of course I love her,” this points out the presumptions that love is reserved only for a ‘man and wife’. Winterson tries to illustrate the injustice between homosexual and heterosexual relationships and the prejudices about homosexuality. She declines to accept homosexual relationship to be an imitation of the heterosexual one.
Winterson also uses very few male characters by which she points out women’s superiority. In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Jeanette’s father does not play big role in her life, her mother is the dominant one, she either controls her husband’s life or she ignores him completely. Jeanette herself says about her father that “he was never quite good enough.” The protagonist grew up hearing only negative opinions on men and even the time when she was an adolescent her life was predominantly surrounded by women, the church she attended with her mother was also kind of matriarchy because except the male pastor there were only females. From the beginning of the story Jeanette prefers women to men and she cannot understand why liking a woman is not normal and that it is considered as a sin. “As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless. I had never shown the slightest feeling for them,” as is suggested in this quote, she was never interested in men nor she has never had an intimate relationship with a man and from her early age she always reacted with rage towards men, even when a postman offered her sweets, she refused it. Her whole life she was surrounded by strong, independent women who were negatively speaking about their husbands, thus she does not consider a marriage with a man to be necessary to fulfil her life as Jeanette explains in this passage: “Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed.”
Nonetheless, her relationship with Melanie, her lover, was very natural for her and she did not feel guilty when they were accused of being possessed by the Church. Melanie was of a different opinion and she ended the relationship, moved away and got married. According to Sonia Front and her book Transgressing Boundaries in Jeanette Winterson's Fiction, “for Melanie this lesbian experience was a part of her transitional stage in her sexual development,” however, Jeanette felt that her sexual orientation is nothing she should be ashamed of although her family and the whole society ostracized her. The only person who accepted Jeanette washer neighbour Elsie Norris, who was also a lesbian, she became a role model for her, and she supported her and listened to her.
Nonetheless, Jeanette’s strict mother experienced having feelings for women as well, when Jeanette and her go through old photo albums Jeanette spots a beautiful woman and asks about her, her mother pretends that it is no one important, however, next time Jeanette looks through the album the photo is gone. This repressed sexuality and fear of unacceptance of society made her mother marry a man and adopt a child as she was not even interested in having sex with her husband. For Jeanette’s mother sex is a taboo, hence she never talk about it with Jeanette, that is also due to the fact that she is very religious.
The community in the novel ostracizes the homosexuals in the village, and it is not only Jeanette but also two other older women, they avoid contacting them, or as for Jeanette the community tries to change her mind about her own sexuality. The fact of being a homosexual is not portrayed as disturbing, it is rather the fear of the other people’s reaction to it. Winterson also addresses this in the introduction of the novel: “what makes life difficult for homosexuals is not their perversity but other people’s.”
Through this novel Winterson escapes from gender stereotypes, as Sonia Front claims: “it is not an attempt to determine between the essentialist and constructionist source of Jeanette’s orientation, but the novel emphasizes her approval of it.” The main message of the novel is present in the protagonist herself, as she fought for her justice and against the society when she was accused of possession. Jeanette remained as strong and rational as she was even when her mother or the church tried to persuade her and change her mind, she developed her own judgement and endured the influence of others. The protagonist’s journey and persistence highlight the oppression and the injustice of homosexuals and it offers a permanent deconstruction of the male/female binary.