MovieChat Forums > I Am Not an Animal (2004) Discussion > Winona wants an 'orangery(sp?)'?

Winona wants an 'orangery(sp?)'?


Sorry if this is a bit thick-headed, but at one point in an episode Winona (the bulldog character) stated that Mark Andrews (the sparrow character) promised he would buy her something that sounded like "an orangery(sp?)". I've not heard the term orangery(sp?)before, did I hear it correctly and could someone provide me a brief definition as to what an orangery is exactly? Some sort of a greenhouse maybe? I believe it was during the episode that saw the sparrow's song reach the pop charts, and the others had him trapped in the basement.

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An orangery is another word for an orange orchard, but usually on a smaller scale. If you can picture a "quaint little farmhouse in Tuscany" with a few acres of orange trees, then you're probably getting close to the sort of over-romanticised, chic-lit inspired image that Winona has conjured up to go with her dream lifestyle.

The use of the word "orangery" (if indeed it is a real word), rather than the more obvious "orange farm", "orange orchard", or "orange grove", is there to further emphasise Winona's personality as that of a "biological clock ticking", fanciful 90's career woman (albeit trapped in the body of a bulldog - see the first few scenes of ep 6) and also (as with the other animals) as a lower middle-class twit, brought up to believe in, and desire, a lifestyle and a set of ideals that she has no use for.

To put it simply, Winona has no desire to be a fruit farmer, or to even grow oranges, but she sees that lifestyle as being terribly romantic. She has separated fiction from reality, and used it to foster an ideal life that, in reality doesn't exist, but which to her is a vital life goal. All too often in this day and age we are led to believe that what we desire is in fact what we need to survive, a myth perpetrated by pop culture, and so called "lifestyle and celebrity" mags (personified in the show by "UH" magazine, a parody of such nut-dissolvingly bad publications as "OK" and HELLO").

It's these unrealistic expectations that have made Winona the character she is.

To sum all of that up;

"Orangery" is a bourgeois word for an orange farm, and seeing as how the BBC does like bourgeois people (or indeed, anyone who isn't a poor, blind, deaf, ethnic minority, OAP, lesbian, with one leg), it's acceptable to use it in Winona's dialogue, to emphasise the negative aspects of her character.

Some people might think that 322 words is a bit excessive for a description of an orange farm, but what the h*ll, it's not like I have anything better to do.

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You're right ruzun - an orangery is a building designed to grow oranges in climates like the UK where it's too cold to grow them outside. Typically, it would be a brick building with large arched windows, and sometimes a glass roof: they were very popular among wealthy landowners in the 18th & 19th centuries. You can sometimes find them in public parks - Derby has one and there's another in the Botanical Garden in Birmingham.

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