A Study On Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,written by the British contemporary female writer Jeanette Winterson(1959-),tells a touching story of the protagonist's pursuit for true self,and is always acknowledged to be a typical Bildungsroman based on the writer's own life experiences.As Winterson's debut,Oranges won the Whitbread Award for a First Novel in 1985,and has been included in both GCSE and the “1000novels everyone must read” list of The Guardian.Although Winterson and her works have been widely studied abroad,there is seldom analysis from the perspective of trauma theory.This thesis attempts to explore Winterson's exposure of social problems which lead to severe trauma and her humanistic concerns for victims' recovery.This paper consists of five parts.Introduction briefly introduces Winterson's life experience and her works,trauma theory and its application in literary criticism,and the literature review of Oranges as well as the framework of this thesis.The first chapter conducts the causes of Jeanette's trauma in the story.The alienated family relationship,failure of love,and hypocrisy religious norms are the deep roots which causes severe trauma.Members of Jeanette's family are isolated with each other,and the family education is far from normal.Love between both heterosexual and homosexual relationships is proven to be failures.Church appears to be sacred and holy on the surface.However,it is actually full of hypocrisy,absurdity and absolutism.The second chapter focuses on the following symptoms upon Jeanette's life and spiritual world left by traumatic events.On the one hand,traumatic experiences lead to spiritual crisis.Jeanette loses faith to her mother and family after being betrayed.She experiences the spirit crisis of religion when getting to realize the hypocrisy and ungodliness.Confined in the dilemma of following the norms of religion or following her own natural homosexual desire,Jeanette has great anxiety in the process of constructing her own gender identity.On the other hand,traumatic events also lead to victims' behavior disorders.Jeanette hates men and has the deep fear for marriage.In addition,she also has difficulties to fit herself in social life.The third chapter makes detailed analysis of the process of recovery from trauma.In the first stage,Jeanette regains the sense of security by searching for emotional comforts and safe living environments.In the second stage,Jeanette admits her lesbian gender identity,and re-establishes her religious belief to reconnect with herself.Forgiving and back home to face her mother and community,Jeanette finishes reconnection with family.At last,she pursues economical independence and thus reconnects with the society.The conclusion part summarizes the analysis above.By describing the growing and recovery process of Jeanette after experiencing traumatic events,Winterson exposes and criticizes the alienation of family,religion and love in modern society,and the following destructive influences upon people's life and mental world.Inaddition,Winterson tends to pose successful healed models for all the people who are facing the same problem around the world.People should bravely admit the trauma and actively search for recovery so that they can break up the confinement and get rid of pains to regain the control of self and life.