FROM “THE ONLY FRUIT” TO THE MANY: STORYTELLING AS A PERFORMATIVE MASK IN JEANETTE WINTERSON’S ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT

Abstract

In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Jeanette Winterson dwells upon the vitality of female voice and perspective in the refashioning of femininity. The notion of femininity is anchored within individual female experience through the discourse of storytelling. The subversive act of storytelling in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit offers re-formation of the traditional myths and fairy tales that depict women as fixed entities, and challenges the binary oppositions and heteronormative discourses of femininity. Furthermore, the act of storytelling forms a space for the creation of an alternative narrative voice for mythmaking and self-exploration. This becomes an act of questioning and testing the borders of femininity and the notions of truth and reality, through which femininity is explored and performed. Storytelling in Oranges Are not the Only Fruit is a performance with which Jeanette makes sense of her external world and challenges it to reconstruct her own sense of identity. The subversive act of storytelling in Winterson’s novel will be analysed through queer theory and the notion of performativity in this article.