Chapter 1: Genesis First Impressions

Thoughts and Reactions

    As I began reading the first chapter of Winterson’s novel "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit", I was instantly brought into the young protagonist’s eccentric world. One thing that caught my attention was the way she narrated her unusual childhood memories is such a nonchalant way, as if being raised by an extremely religious mother is not weird. In all honesty though, I found the mother to be just as interesting as the narrator but also deeply worried about how she raised her kids as well. In the first page alone we see her categorize everything into two categories: “There were friends and there were enemies.” Other than that, there was no room for anything in the mother's perspective. Friends include “God, Our dog, Auntie Madge,” while the enemies list included “The Devil (in his many forms), Next Door, Sex (in its many forms), Slugs.” This kind of hardcore religious reasoning, crazy as it is, is a prominent presence throughout the childhood of the narrator and for the most part, she just lives with it. The tale of the princess who takes over the old hunchback’s duties is also so revealing of the mother's philosophy. It shows us the mother’s attitude toward the narrator's adoption which was not out of love according to the narrator when she said “She would get a child, train it, build it, dedicate it to the Lord.”     

    With that said, I thought the chapter was very funny because of how exaggerated and satirical the religious beliefs of some of the characters. Like many Filipinos, I also grew up with a very religious and superstitious mom, although not as hardcore as the mother in the story. This led me to relate to some of the crazy religious rules the narrator lived by. Now that I'm an adult, I've already gone on the journey of self discovery that the narrator is yet to go through in the book so this book is extra meaningful to me since it reminds me of that journey. I'm honesty very excited to go through the rest of the chapters.

 

Literary Element: Plot

    After reading the chapter, I think the scene depicting the Fuzzy Felt Bible figures tells us a great deal about how the narrator is starting to reason independently despite her highly indoctrinated religious life. When Pastor Finch discovers her new setting where, instead of being rescued from the lions Daniel is being devoured by them, he reaction is largely reflect how fixed the bounds of morality concerning religion are in her world. This is even more evident when she defends herself when confronted and says “I wanted to do Jonah and the whale, but they don’t do whales in fuzzy felt, so I am pretending those lions are whales.” This moment helps us interrogate holistically the manner in which she is already learning to navigate around the straitjacket of religious orthodoxy. She has her own independent notions about the bible tales but she also recognizes the fact that she has to gain the approval of those in authority. Pastor Finch's response is supports narrative when he says, “I will fix this your creation.” It shows how he - together with many adults - is doing the same thing after “He carefully moved the lions off to one corner and Daniel to the other.” As we have seen, this solitude provides a hint at how the adults in her life were continuously attempting to impose their objective understanding and disjoining what she had constructed. 

    In this scene, the narrator appears to be overly critical of small details. It is for this reason, when Pastor Finch tries to put together another Bible scene, that he tries to look for a king and she says: “Hopeless… you only get three kings to a box.” I believe that saying also reflects the literal box of both the Fuzzy Felt set and the theoretical box she lives in which means the religious limitations and rules she has to live by. I think the scene sets the tone for the main theme of the book as well which is how the narrator will discover her own beliefs and lifestyle within an strict religious environment she was raised in. The narrator seems to be at the brink of discovering this reality just before setting out for school, which symbolizes her first venture into the outside world, free from her mother’s control and makes the readers curious to continue the story.