49 pages • 1 hour read
Jeanette WintersonOranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1985A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Oranges
Content Warning: This section contains depictions of anti-LGBTQIA+ bias and abuse.
In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit the recurring appearance of oranges becomes a motif that combines the many themes of the novel focused on family and personal identity. The notion that oranges are the only fruit stem from Jeanette’s mother, who only ever gives her oranges, especially in times of comfort: “I started to cry. My mother looked horrified and rooting in her handbag she gave me an orange. I peeled it to comfort myself” (25). Jeanette’s mother gives her this orange in the hospital as she leaves, and though she rarely comes to visit she sends oranges with Jeanette’s father to the hospital. The oranges and their singular identity as the only fruit show a connection between Jeanette, her mother, and their way of life. The oranges represent Jeanette’s life in the church and her mother’s commitment to living that life in a particular way. The oranges comfort Jeanette by reminding her of this, but as time goes on and conflict grows, the oranges take on another meaning, as explored in the depiction of an orange tree in a garden: “To eat of the fruit means to leave the garden because the fruit speaks of other things, other longings. So at dusk you say goodbye to the place you love, not knowing if you can ever return, knowing you can never return by the same way as this” (125). The oranges come to represent the potential for Jeanette of a life away from her mother and the church, where she can live freely. Oranges are not the only fruit, but when her mother only gives her oranges, it makes the possibility of other fruits more enticing. As Jeanette grows older, these oranges begin to show her that she is missing another way of life and that she is free to resist the pull and judgment of the church and her mother to repent.
Brown Pebble
The brown pebble that appears in both Jeanette’s reality and the fairy tale about Winnet is a symbol representing the rough exterior Jeanette must create to protect herself. In the church, and with her mother, Jeanette cannot live authentically and must keep her feelings for women hidden from those around her. She also must steel herself against the comments and sermons that demonize her lesbian identity. When she and Katy are discovered and Jeanette must leave the boarding house, she focuses on the brown pebble as she leaves in pain: “As I left Katy behind, she was crying. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I wouldn’t live through any of that again. Hands in my pockets, I played with a rough brown pebble” (132). In this moment of pain and departure, Jeanette commits to not struggling against the church and being subjected to the same shame again. She begins preparing herself for the fallout of her and Katy’s discovery and the hard decision to leave the church if that is the only way to avoid their ire. This sentiment is echoed in Winnet’s fairy tale with the raven Abednego’s gift to her of his heart: “Then he rearranged his feathers, and dropped a rough brown pebble into her hand. […] ‘I know,’ the raven replied sadly. ‘You see I chose to stay, oh, a long time ago, and my heart grew thick with sorrow, and finally set. It will remind you’” (149). Just as Abednego’s heart sets to stone because he stays in the sorcerer’s kingdom, so too does Jeanette recognize that the same will happen to her if she stays with her mother and the church. The pebble is a warning of how the rough exterior and secrecy surrounding her heart will impact her if she stays and keeps living her life under such pressure and judgment. The brown pebble represents the negative effects of the church on Jeanette and her need to escape it.
Wreaths
The motif of wreaths in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit represents the impact of religious fervor on personal expression, particularly when it comes to death. The woman who makes wreaths craves creativity and challenge but is unable to pursue her dreams because the majority of her clients only want crosses for funerals. She laments how times have changed and she has the creativity and personal spark that once existed: “[M]y mother, she wore her fingers to the bone making wreaths. And they were wreaths in them days. Hearts and flowers, coronets, family crests” (58). When her mother made wreaths, expressions of individuals’ passions and values were common, but in her time, the need for religious signifiers dominates. The funerals in town, especially those connected to the church, want the events to be commemorated by signs of faith, eliminating any trace of the deceased’s particular life or personality. The woman primarily serves the church and its many branches, but late in the novel, when she earns a contract from a nursing home for the wealthy, she sees a difference in her orders: “‘It does mek a difference money does,’ she assured me, showing off her new designs. ‘They like proper remembrance up there. None of them bloody crosses’” (150). Devotion to the church erases the personal side of remembering the dead, a sentiment the woman expresses in this conversation with Jeanette. When she begins serving people apart from the church, she sees orders that are meant to commemorate and remember those who pass. She likes this side of wreath-making more, wary of the ways in which devotion to the church necessitate a sacrifice of personal identity and interests.
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By Jeanette Winterson
