Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is Jeanette Winterson's somewhat autobiographical Coming of Age novel about a young adopted girl discovering she's a lesbian in a fanatically Christian community. It was later adapted as a Miniseries by the BBC.

Tropes used in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit include:
  • Adaptation Name Change: Jeanette is renamed Jessica in the TV adaptation, possibly to reduce the autobiographical elements of the story.
  • Adults Are Useless: The only adult who even tries to help the protagonist is Mrs. Jewsberry who has possibly non-consensual and definitely underage sex with her.
  • Allegory Adventure: The fairy tales that pepper the text usually mirror Jeanette's life in some fashion.
  • Arc Words:
  • Author Avatar: Quite obviously Jeanette.
  • Biblical Motifs: Tons of them, including: casting the first stone, the walls of Jericho, Lot's wife, "to the pure all things are pure" (Titus 1.15), the number seven, and the names of the chapters.
  • Butch Lesbian: Kinda. Jeanette says she sees no similarity between herself and men -- except that she always wears trousers. In the miniseries this is averted: she almost never wears trousers and yet is attracted to the femme Melanie.
  • Coming Out Story
  • Cool Old Lady: Elsie
  • Double Standard Rape (Female on Female): Implied with the interactions between Jeanette and Mrs. Jewsberry.
  • Girls Love: With Melanie and later Katy.
  • Holier Than Thou: Melanie's husband has this attitude. So does Jeanette's mother and most of the congregation members.
  • Jane Eyre: It's Jeanette's mother's favorite book. Later we find out that her mother changed the ending so that Jane marries St. John.
  • Lipstick Lesbian: In the miniseries.
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: Elsie
  • Motif: The eponymous oranges. Also the rough brown pebble.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Jeanette was like this as a child.
  • No Sex Allowed: This seems to be the rule in Jeanette's community. Her parents adopted her to avoid having sex.
  • Only Sane Man: Jeanette for most of the story.
  • Religion Is Wrong: Or at least fundamentalism is.
  • Spiteful Spit
  • Title Drop: Towards the end, when Jeanette's mother winds up with a ton of pineapple and everybody at the church eats lots of pineapple dishes for a while.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Though all the other lesbians in the miniseries are LipstickLesbians, the two who run the sweet shop are a butch/femme couple.
  • The Fundamentalist: Jeanette's mother.
  • Theme Naming: The chapters are named for the first eight books of the Christian Bible.
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