The Symbolic Use Of Hunger In
literature
Throughout history, both men and women have struggled trying to achieve unattainable goals in the face of close-minded societies. Authors have often used this theme to develop stories of characters that face obstacles and are sometimes unable to overcome the stigma that is attached to them. This inability to rise above prejudice is many times illustrated with the metaphor of hunger. Not only do people suffer from physical hunger, but they also suffer from spiritual hunger: a need to be full of life. When this spiritual hunger is not satisfied, it can destroy a life, just as physical hunger can kill as well.
Characters such as Edna Pontellier of Kate Chopin’s The ...
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a common struggle. Edna belongs to upper class Creole society, Hugh Wolfe is a poverty-stricken immigrant laborer, and Jane Eyre, an orphan. These characters lived during the middle to the end of the nineteenth century, in completely distinct worlds, yet all had their creativity stifled by society. Similarly, Djuna Barnes poem of the British woman who goes on a hunger strike in an attempt to get the vote and Anna Wickham’s poem The Affinity describing the angst of a deprived wife, both depict women who lived during the early twentieth century and, although different, were both suppressed in some way.
Edna Pontellier was a woman who was forced to comply with the rules of Creole society, but, in being reluctant to do so, found herself in a world where she felt trapped. She saw how women were supposed to behave but did not have that behavior instilled in herself. She felt confined by her husband’s expectations, and did not want to live out the typical role of wife ...
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Orleans, without her children, she became “hungry for them” (1067). When she finally went to visit them in Iberville, “she looked into their faces with hungry eyes that could not be satisfied with looking” (1085). Their presence was not enough to appease her, nor would it ever be. She loved them dearly, yet could not be the ideal mother she knew they deserved. Although she missed them when they were away, she was filled with satisfaction when she realized she was alone for the first time. She described the feeling as being “delicious” (1068). Suddenly, everything she did was new and interesting, the food she ate was “delicious,” and ...
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"The Symbolic Use Of Hunger In." Essayworld.com. October 4, 2004. Accessed April 18, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Symbolic-Use-Of-Hunger-In/15402.
"The Symbolic Use Of Hunger In." Essayworld.com. October 4, 2004. Accessed April 18, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Symbolic-Use-Of-Hunger-In/15402.
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