Sexuality, self, and the world around us

While reading Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, I found myself becoming more timid and less able to participate in class. I have been trying to figure out what has happened to me! I think this novel is unlike any I have read before and when I thought, "I get it" there turned out to be connections I missed and certain, very meaningful, things have gone unseen and unexplored. Before reading this novel I didn't eat oranges often but now I eat one just about every day. I look forward to my after-dinner Orange. I've also been trying to think of a way to connect my eating of oranges with Jeanette's but I've had no luck so far. I try to relate to Jeanette and there are not too many commonalities between us. I did find that I can relate to her thought processes. There are moments I read and think, "how could such a young kid think this way?" I can relate to chapter 5, Deuteronomy, because in English 101 class my professor taught us about history and how whether intentional or not it can be manipulative. My communications professor taught me about the importance of storytelling. I have learned what Jeanette is telling us in that chapter but I learned that in my third year of college. Something else that amazes me is that soon after she makes this great comparison between storytelling and history uses a great and simple metaphor: a sandwich. As Professor Estevez points out, this homely metaphor is actually just amazing because one must eat in order to live, and the point is made that ideas and stories are one's daily sustenance as well. 

This novel is all-encompassing. I've always imagined that when I write my first book I will include poems, photos, drawings, stories that seem to come out of the blue-- all things to express my life and my imagination. 

The Coming Out Story is usually the hallmark narrative for people of LGBTQ experience. These stories are usually straightforward and autobiographical but Winterson's is not. She places us in her world, how she sees it, allowing us to really see how she feels about her mother, Jesus, the community, and everything else. Winterson's story gives me an opportunity to reflect on my coming out experience. I come out all the time to new people I meet and I haven't thought much about my coming out to my family because it was a few years ago. Storytelling benefits all readers because it allows them to see more, to gain a different perspective, and to self-reflect. Winterson writes an indirect story and I think that it helps us stop, take a moment and really analyze the words and the situation. We can begin to make sense of sexuality, the self, and the world around us.

I find autobiographical writing to be an important way of discovering and demonstrating one's one gratitude, life-story, and vision of the world. 

In class Professor Estevez spoke about fact and fiction and how they are not desperate and opposite but they are intimately connected. There is no history beyond narrative. History is storytelling. Everything is a version of something and I think Winterson really had a great way of showing that: don't just read this like it's a history book- and also don't read history books as facts. There is no absolute way of knowing what really happened. This is why she wrote a metafiction novel that constantly showed us that it is indeed fictional. This is a look into a characters world, imagination, thoughts, perception. This is for others to gain a different perspective on someone's life and to perhaps look inward and discover new things about themselves. 

Hannah Duffin