A woman steps onto the pulpit and begins to preach. His words are persuasive and moving, and many believe he speaks from the Spirit. She is a woman of faith who wants to fulfill her mother's wish for her to become a missionary. She is intelligent and she is pious. And according to his congregation it is an abomination. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay This talented preacher is Jeanette, the protagonist of Jeanette Winterson's "bizarre, unconventional, and often comical" novel "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" (Merriam-Webster 1207). Like Winterson herself, the book's protagonist grew up in a climate of religious fanaticism. His family's OLD TESTAMENT FACTS tablecloth is but one indication of his unswerving devotion to biblical fundamentalism. But just as the word "Bible" does not mean "a book", but "a collection of books", so "Oranges are not the only fruit" is not a story but a collection of stories. Ranging from the ironic to the imaginative, these anecdotes tell not only Jeanette's life, but also a story about storytelling itself. Through the postmodern use of story frames, Winterson constructs and deconstructs his own narrative and, in doing so, constructs an escape for Jeanette from the traps of religious fanaticism. "Oranges" is a book full of religious symbolism. Of course, the chapters are built on a biblical framework, each named after a book of the Bible. In the first chapter, Genesis, Jeanette recounts her Messiah-style birth: Her mother, not wanting to conceive a child in the typical way, “followed a star until she came to settle above an orphanage, and in that place there was a cradle. , and in that cradle, a child. A child with too much hair” (Winterson 10). But that's where the symbolism begins. Jeanette says that her mother “took the child away for seven days and seven nights” (Winterson 10). The phrase echoes a biblical passage – “So they sat with [Job] on the ground seven days and seven nights” (Job 2:13) – and includes the symbolic number seven, the number of “completion and perfection” (Ferguson 154) . The mystical nature of the number is of ancient origin (Sahibzada) and also occurs in other parts of the novel, such as when Pastor Finch asks young Jeanette how old she is and she replies, "Seven" (Winterson 11). “Ah, seven,” he says. “How blessed are the seven days of creation, the seven-branched lampstand, the seven seals” (Winterson 11). But also how cursed, he thunders, because “the demon can return SEVEN TIMES” (Winterson 12). And it actually returns seven times, according to the pastor, when Jeanette is revealed to be a lesbian for the second time (Winterson 131). At the same time, “seven ripe oranges” appear on the windowsill (Winterson 131). Seven is also, incidentally, the number of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the capital sins and the cardinal virtues. Some biblical allusions in the novel are more direct, such as the amusing reference to Elsie's three mice in a fiery cage as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Winterson 31) - three figures from the book of Daniel - and the same reference to the name of the three ravens of sorcerer (Winterson 145). But some of the book's biblical allusions are more subtle: "And so, being sensible, the collector of curiosities will surround himself with dead things, and think of the past when he lived and moved and existed" (Winterson 95). The reference is to Acts: “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). This interweaving of religious words and symbols in his novel is undoubtedly a byproduct of Winterson's evangelical upbringing. His parents belonged to the Pentecostal denomination, a denomination that believes the Bible is literally truein all things, that he is “infallible” (United Pentecostal Church International). By declaring the Bible inerrant, the church makes it a substitute for God, a form of idolatry called “bibliolatry” (Gomes 36). As John Shelby Spong says in his book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, this is a comforting belief: "Those whose religious security is rooted in a literal Bible do not want that security disturbed. They are unhappy when facts call into question the their biblical understanding or when nuances are introduced into the text or when they are forced to face contradictions or changing intuitions The Bible, as they understand it, shares God's permanence and certainty, convinces them that they are right, and justifies enormous fear. and even the negativity that lies so close to the surface in fundamentalist religion. For biblical literalists, there is always an enemy to defeat in mortal combat” (Spong 3). . to light in church, Jeanette becomes an adversary in this mortal combat As late as 1977, the Pentecostal Church stated that it disapproved of “liberal groups within Christianity who accept 'the.' so-called gay rights movement as a legitimate way of life” and condemned homosexuality as “vile, unnatural, unseemly, and an abomination in the sight of God” (ReligiousTolerance.org). The naming words here are taken from Paul's epistle to the Romans (Romans 1:26-27). Peter Gomes, the chaplain at Harvard College, explains opinions like this in terms of fear. Fear is “at the heart of homophobia, as it was of racism,” and religion is “a moral fig leaf that [covers] naked prejudice” (Gomes 166). Gomes adds that “no credible case against homosexuality or homosexuals can be drawn from the Bible unless one chooses to read the Scriptures in a way that simply supports existing prejudice against homosexuality and homosexuals. The combination of ignorance and prejudice under the guise of morality makes the religious community, and its abuse of the Scriptures in this regard, itself morally culpable” (Gomes 147). Jeanette's congregation responds to the news of her continued homosexuality by rethinking her role in the church overall and forbidding her from having “influential contact” with other parishioners (Winterson 134). Again, they use the Bible to support an existing prejudice: “The real issue, it seems, was to go against the teaching of St. Paul and allow women power in the church” (Winterson 133). The Bible, after all, says that “it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (1 Corinthians 14:35). Jeanette's mother is no doubt thinking of this verse and others like it when she stands up in church and says that "the message belonged to men" (Winterson 133). It would seem like an opportunity for moral clarity, which might please Jeanette's mother, who “had never heard of conflicting feelings. There were friends and there were enemies” (Winterson 3). And Jeanette had become the enemy. Convinced that it is possible to love another woman and God at the same time, Jeanette ultimately responds by leaving the congregation and striking out on her own. But Jeanette the character is also Jeanette the author: Winterson's book is largely autobiographical. Author Jeanette writes a book that questions the very act of telling stories. His postmodern conceit includes snapshots not only of his life, but also of Arthurian legend and other apocryphal tales. By including these imaginative elements in his fiction, Winterson deconstructs the process of storytelling and shows the risk of believing in the inerrancy of any book. Her approach is not dissimilar to that of Toni Morrison in, 8, 2003.