Motherhood, Power, and Resistance: Mother–Daughter Relationships in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

This article examines the mother–daughter relationship in Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit through Adrienne Rich’s concept of motherhood as both lived experience and social institution, alongside an intertextual reading of Perceval: The Story of the Grail and Jane Eyre. It argues that motherhood in the novel functions as an institutionalized form of power through which religious ideology and patriarchal authority regulate female subjectivity. Jeanette’s adoptive mother embodies this institutional motherhood, transforming maternal love into a mechanism of discipline and control. By rewriting the narrative structure of “departure–trial–return,” Winterson exposes the limits of traditional religious and heroic paradigms while revealing the recursive nature of patriarchal domination. At the same time, the presence of non-biological maternal figures articulates alternative modes of maternal care grounded in ethical responsiveness and quiet resistance. This study demonstrates that Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit critiques institutionalized motherhood while reimagining maternal relations as a critical space for female self-definition.