Jeanette’s Differentiation Of Self In Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Jeanette Winterson is one of the most acknowledged British contemporary writers whose debut Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, known as Bildungsroman, traces the protagonist’s (Jeanette) pursuit for lesbian identity. Previous criticism in China and abroad has interpreted this novel mainly from postmodernist perspectives with focuses on Winterson’s deconstruction of gender, history and grand narrative. In the light of Murray Bowen’s family systems theory, this thesis attempts to explore Jeanette’s differentiation of self, thus hopefully providing a new angle for Wintersonian studies.The Family Systems Theory (FST) views family as an emotional unit, in which families are emotionally and behaviorally interdependent. It seems far-fetched to explore one’s behavior without thoroughly comprehending his or her entire family systems. Thus, this thesis firstly analyzes Jeanette’s developmental environment, and then gives a detailed account of Jeanette’s self-differentiation with attention drawn to her emotional attachment with her family, that’s to say, the interplay of individuality and togetherness in her relationship with others.After a meticulous analysis, the writer concludes that Jeanette is brought up in a poorly differentiated family in which she is exposed to her parents’ marital conflicts through being triangulated. Jeanette is scapegoated into her parents’marital problems becoming the emotional foil between her parents, which extensively maims her ability to differentiate. However, with physical and physiological maturation, she develops sufficiently in self-consciousness. In her quest for self-identity, she confronts with dominating ideology pushing her to separate from family, thereby strengthening her differentiation of self. In the end, Jeanette could strike a balance between individuality and togetherness and achieves sound differentiation.