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<title> Oranges are not the only fruit </title>
In what appears to be a autobiografy, Jeanette Winterson writes an interesting novel about a young girl named Jeanette. Jeanette is being brought up in norhtern England by her christian mother. Her mother takes her regularly to a baptist church where Jeanette is seen as a child of God. She is thaugt that everything is either good or bad, black or white and that she is going to be a missionay.

The title Oranges are not the only fruit appears first time on page 29. Jeanette is in hospital with ear problems. Jeanette is getting better and her mother visits her at the hospital.

	"My mother came to see me quite a lot in the end, but it was the busy season at church. They were planning the Christman campaign. When she couldn't come herself she sent my father, usually with a letter and a couple of oranges.
	'The only fruit,' she always said.
	Fruit salad, fruit pie, fruit for fools, fruited punch. Demon fruit, passion fruit, rotten fruit, fruit on Sunday.
	Oranges are the only fruit. I filled my little bucket with peel and the nurses emptied it with an ill grace. I hid the peel under my pillow and the nurses scolded and sighed."

In the end, Jeanette is a grown up and at the time she has not held contact with her mother in quite some time. Jeanette has left the church and the social life around it. Eventually they meet one Christmas. 'Oranges are not the only fruit', her mother says diametrically diffrent from what she has been thougt as a child. The world is not black and white any more.

This is one message in the novel. Jeanette finds out that taking up a stand is not an easy, two-dimentional question of good or evil, but rather a very complicated, abstract task. One of the major cause that contributes to this discovery is a charecter named Melanie.

Melanie appers first time on page 78 when Jeanette is in town.

	"I wouldn't have noticed Melanie if I hadn't gone round the other side of the stall to look at the aquarium.
	She was boning kippers on a big marble stab. She used a thin stained knife, and threw the gut into a tin bucket. The clean fish she laid on greaseproof paper, and every fourth fish had a sprig of parsley.
	'I'd like doing that', I said
	She smiled and carried on.
	'Do you like doing it?'
	She still said nothing, so I slid, as discreetly as a person in a pink plastic mac can, to the other side of the tank. I couldn't see very well because of the hood over my eyes.
	'Can I have some fish-bait?' I asked
She looked up, and I notices her eyes were a lovely gray, like the cat Next Door.
	'I'm not supposed to have friends at work'
	'But I'm not your friend,' I poinetd out rudely.
	'No, but they'll think you are,' she replied.
	'Well I might as well be then,' I suggested.
	She stared at me a moment, then turned away."

In a first impression Melanie is a shy and reserved girl. Melanie is somewhat afraid of making contact to new people. Melanie does not shine of confidence and is not socially enterprising. We lern this by the way she defensivly react and what she say and what she does not say.

In a way, Melanie is a major character of the book. She becomes the turning-point and radically changes Jeanette's situation. As Jeanette makes friend with Melanie, she discover her sexual nature. This will eventually lead to a split-up with the church and a new way of looking at the world. In this way, Melanie is a major part of the message.

But in an other way, Melanie is a very flat character. It is not her personality that gives Jeanette new perspectives. Melanie is not an atheistic prophet. Jeanette does the most of the work herself as she finds herself in a new situation. Melanie is more like a sexual partner that only as a coincident makes Jeanette discover her sexual nature. It is hard to tell if the same situation would have developed with an other partner, but I think that it could.

The impression is confirmed in a very important passage. Jeanette's mother finds out about Jeanette's and Melanie's lesbian relationship. On page 102 they are in church.

	"'These childeren of God,' began the pastor, 'have fallen under Satan's spell.'
	His hand was hot and heavy on my neck. Everyone in the congregation looked like a waxwork.
	'These children have fallen foul of their lusts.'
	'Just a minute...,' I began, but he took no notice'
	'These children are full of demons.'
	A cry of horror ran through the church.
	'I'm not.' I shouted, 'and neither is she.'
	'Listen to Satan's voice,' said the pastor to the church, pointing at me. 'How are the best become the worst.'
	'What are you talking about?' I asked, desperate.
	'Do you deny you love this woman with a love reserved for man and wife?'
	'No, yes, I mean I love her.'
	'I will read you the words of St Paul,' announced the pastor, and he did, and many more words besides about unnatural passions and the mark of the demon.
	'To the pure all things are pure,' I yelled at him. 'It's you, not us.'
	He turned to Melanie.
	'Do you promise to give up this sin and bed the lord to forgive you?'
	'Yes.' She was trembling uncontrollably. I hardly heard what she said.

In this situation Melanie does not stand up but rather accepts that she is being humiliated. Melanie is a passive girl that does not take hard conflicts. She does not defend herself but rather accepts an non-worthy situation. She does not defend her rights.

But Melanie has other sides as well. She shows tenderness before and after this situation. She is friendly and innocent. She would not even harm a fly.

Melanie is a flat, out of character. We lern most about her personality by the way she reacts and whats she says. The narrator does not comment directly on her, neither do other characters speak och react in a way that reveal her personality. As a reader, one feel sorry for her, but we do not actually lern very much about her. She becomes a mysterious person in that way. Her reactions, in the church for instance, is never analysed. The reader cannot tell why she did as she did, what she thought, how she felt. One is only given a general impression on the way she acts and what she says.

Eventually, she marries a man, but one cannot be certain if she is homosexual or not, if she is happy or not. Because not much is revealed, she is very mysterious. I think the author does this on pupose, and the author does well.

I like Melanie because of this. From the third part perspective, the relationship becomes hotter and more passionate if not all secrets are revealed, like a teenage romance, short and intense. Melanie is a romantic character, but also a mysterious lover that one feel sorry for. It's hard not to like her.
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