Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

“And so it was that on a particular day, some time later, she followed a star until it came to settle above an orphanage, and in that place was a crib, and in that crib, a child. A child with too much hair.”

Jeanette’s mother wants a child to devote to God and does so by raising Jeanette to be a missionary. She sees a holy purpose to being Jeanette’s mother and, even in the story of her adoption, describes it as a holy moment comparable to the three kings finding the baby Jesus.

“I discovered that everything in the natural world was a symbol of the Great Struggle between good and evil. ‘Consider the mamba,’ said my mother. ‘Over short distances the mamba can outrun a horse.’ And she drew the race on a sheet of paper. She meant that in the short term, evil can triumph, but never for long.”

Throughout the novel, Jeanette often struggles with the religious conceptions of good and evil, since her sexuality is deemed a sin, yet she finds no issue with it. From an early age, she is taught to think of good and evil as always in a race in which good will eventually triumph. This framing is meant to show her that temptations are temporary and should be ignored.

“Since I was born I had assumed that the world ran on very simple lines, like a larger version of our church. Now I was finding that even the church was sometimes confused. This was a problem. But not one I chose to deal with for many years more.”

As Jeanette grows older, she struggles to reconcile the world and teachings of the church with the outside world she knows. It foreshadows her impending conflict with her mother and the church over her sexuality, though she won’t recognize it for years.

“So I was alone. I thought of Jane Eyre, who faced many trials and was always brave. My mother read the book to me whenever she felt sad; she said it gave her fortitude.”

Jeanette’s mother frames Jane Eyre as a hero for her daughter. She sees the character’s many struggles as an example for her daughter on how to be strong during trying times. Jeanette also notices a connection between her mother’s emotions and the book.

“And most important, when talking to individuals, you determined as soon as you could what they most wanted in life, and of what they were most afraid. This made the message immediately relevant.”

This excerpt is advice Jeanette receives on how to best convert people. The church targets insecurities and hopes in an attempt to manipulate new followers into feeling that they will achieve their hopes in this community or be protected from their fears.

“Perfection the man said, was a thing to aspire to. It was the condition of the Godhead, it was the condition of the man before the Fall. It could only be truly realized in the next world, but we had a sense of it, a maddening, impossible sense, which was both a blessing and a curse.”

Perfection is the root of Jeanette’s first disagreement with her church, and this excerpt is a summary of the exact sermon that she takes issue with. The notion of perfection in religious communities leads to a harsh reaction against what is not conceived as being perfect, such as unaccepted sexualities, foreshadowing Jeanette’s conflict with the church.

“[S]he wasn’t flawless. He, the prince, had been wrong. She was perfect because she was a perfect balance of qualities and strengths. She was symmetrical in every respect. The search for perfection, she had told him, was in fact the search for balance, for harmony.”

In the fairy tale, the prince that searches for perfection is told that it can be found in balance. He finds a woman who is well-balanced but who he does not see as perfect because of flaws he identifies within her. He believes that perfection is flawlessness rather than a balance between flaws and other qualities.

“I had hoped on coming here to find an end to my quest, but I now know that perfection is not to be found, but to be fashioned, there is no such thing as flawlessness on this earth.”

Here, the prince admits his error, realizing that perfection is not to be found. He concludes that perfection must be made and forged by man. His desire for perfection echoes Jeanette’s mother’s desire for Jeanette to be perfect, and Jeanette’s hope is for her mother to realize, like the prince, that flawlessness does not exist.

“There was a woman in our street who told us all she had married a pig. I asked her why she did it, and she said ‘You never know until it’s too late.’”

Jeanette finds the description of pig appropriate in this scene, but the words of the woman strike her because they hint that the woman had no way of knowing what kind of person her husband is. Jeanette worries for all women who marry and then are surprised when their love and efforts cannot change the men in their lives.

“In the library I felt better, words you could trust and look at till you understood them, they couldn’t change half way through a sentence like people, so it was easier to spot a lie.”

Jeanette loves books because she can trust their stalwart honesty. While the people around her can hide the truth and change, the books she finds in the library always offer the same words no matter when she reads them. She can trust their words and informs herself with them.

“Imagine my mother’s horror. She had given away her all for an ailment. She took the tablets, followed the diet, and refused Pierre’s entreaties to visit her. Needless to say, the next time they met, and again by chance, she felt nothing, nothing at all, and shortly fled the country to avoid him.”

Jeanette’s mother is embarrassed by her relationship with Pierre after she discovers that the feeling she believes to be love is just the effect of a stomach ulcer. This skews her understanding of love and leads her away from relationships based on feelings toward relationships based on gain, such as her relationship with Jeanette’s father, whom she converts and marries for stability.

“Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It’s a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it’s a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time.”

In this chapter, the malleability of and purpose of stories are explored. This brief excerpt explains that stories are used to explain the vast mysteries of the universe while also acknowledging that the universe can never truly be understood.

“People have never had a problem disposing of the past when it gets too difficult. Flesh will burn, photos will burn, and memory, what is that? The imperfect ramblings of fools who will not see the need to forget. And if we can’t dispose of it we can alter it.”

History and its fragility are the main focus of this chapter. The past can be changed at will, and, through the destruction of artifacts and records, it can be completely erased. This view of history is later echoed with Melanie’s denial of their relationship, as she says she remembers it differently than Jeanette.

“Here is some advice. If you want to keep your own teeth, make your own sandwiches.”

This quote is the final sentence of the chapter and offers advice on benefits of independence. The metaphor of sandwiches here is meant to convey that you should only use what you know and create in order to protect yourself.

“I explained how much I wanted to be with Melanie, that I could talk to her, that I needed that kind of friend. And…And…But I never managed to talk about and…My mother had been very quiet, nodding her head from time to time, so that I thought she understood some of it.”

When Jeanette approaches her mother to discuss her confusing feelings toward Melanie, she frames them as though they are merely good friends. However, in this discussion, her mother recognizes the signs that their relationship is something beyond friendship and is even romantic.

“She burnt a lot more than the letters that night in the backyard. I don’t think she knew. In her head she was still queen, but not my queen any more, not the White Queen any more.”

For much of the novel, Jeanette’s mother is an unquestionable figure in Jeanette’s mind. However, after the betrayal over Melanie and the burning of her belongings, a crack in their relationship opens up. Jeanette begins seeing her less and less as an authority figure.

“At last she put on her gloves and beret and very lightly kissed me goodbye. I felt nothing. But when she’d gone, I pulled up my knees under my chin, and begged the Lord to set me free.”

When Melanie says goodbye after her brief Christmas visit, Jeanette feels the pain of a true goodbye. It sinks in that Melanie is choosing a different path and that their past relationship is completely over. Jeanette is now alone in her struggle with her lesbian identity, as the girl she loved forsakes it in favor of a life in the church.

“Now if I was aping men she’d have every reason to be disgusted. As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless.”

Throughout the novel, Jeanette holds a negative perception of men, as she sees them as destructive and not worth her love. In this excerpt, she expresses a milder evaluation: She looks upon men with a lack of interest and believes they have no important place in her life.

“My mother gave a little cry, and then got angry again. It was my own fault. My own perversity. They started arguing between themselves about whether I was an unfortunate victim or a wicked person. I listened for a while; neither of them were very convincing, and besides, seven ripe oranges had just dropped on to the window sill.”

As Jeanette’s mother and the pastor argue over the nature of her sin, whether she is a helpless victim or knowing villain, Jeanette feels indifferent because their argument strikes her as a moot point: She does not see her feelings for women as a sin and therefore finds no merit in their debate.

“I knew my mother hoped I would blame myself, but I didn’t. I knew now where the blame lay. If there’s such a thing as spiritual adultery, my mother was a whore.”

When the pastor declares that women have too much power in the church and Jeanette’s mother agrees, Jeanette sees the real villain. Her mother proves to be a hypocrite in this moment, as she is one of the most involved and influential people in the entire congregation.

“It works because the principle of personal space is always the same, whether you’re fending off an elemental or someone’s bad mood. It’s a force field around yourself, and as long as our imagining powers are weak, it’s useful to have something physical to remind us.”

This excerpt connects magical protection with personal space and explores the idea that protection can come from separation. It ties to Jeanette’s choice to remove herself from the church to protect herself and her identity.

“She must follow it if she wants to know the extent of her territory. She must pass through the blood and bones that swill round the bottom step, before she can squat on the top step, in the huge space under her skin.”

This quote follows Winnet in her dream as she descends into herself. In her journey through herself, Winnet gains a better understanding of herself that will help her in the outside world, much like how Elsie suggests to Jeanette early on that one must recognize and understand both one’s inner self and the outside world to reconcile the two.

“The prophet has no book. The prophet is a voice that cries in the wilderness, full of sounds that do not always set into meaning. The prophets cry out because they are troubled by demons.”

When asked what would have happened to her if she stayed in her hometown, Jeanette says that she would be a prophet. Throughout her adolescence, she is told she is troubled by demons and has a knack for preaching. She would not want to follow the rules and laws put forth by her church but rather speak of her own relationship to God, likely to the ire of the church.