“When she lifted the soup spoon to her lips how I longed to be that innocent piece of stainless steel” (Winterson 36), evokes the type of love that is displayed in Romeo and Juliet. However, with a closer read, both of these love connections can clearly be classified as obsessive rather than passionate, controlling rather than romantic. The all-consuming language (“the blood in my body” and “resurrected”) as the narrator describes Louise simply eating soup gives way to sexual connotations (“take me in your mouth” and “pleasure”). It’s not simply an objectification of the lover, but a desire to be her only source of sustenance, to have ownership.
Louise’s body is functioning normally, and, like all humans, she needs to eat to survive. The narrator inserts themselves into this fundamentally human act and makes it about their perceived connection with Louise, their need for her, and their need for her to need them back. They are not content with being her company, they need to be her lifeblood. The connections between bodies and food is obvious in the repetition of certain words like “mouth,” “lips,” and “blood,” in tandem with “vegetable stock,” “vermicelli,” “soup,” and “butter.” This is a dangerous type of obsession, because on the surface it seems passionately romantic, so as not to invite argument or denial. Because of this, a question of consent can be asked, because Louise is not aware of the narrator’s train of thought as she is eating her soup, she is not aware of the fact that she is being sexualized to such an extent. To put so much of yourself into one person is to saddle them with the responsibility of the magnitude of your love, something which they might not be comfortable with. It is also risky on the narrator’s end, because if Louise remains unaware of these feelings she is likely to hurt them, or even if she is aware, it’s almost impossible to not hurt the people you love. There’s a power imbalance on both sides in this passage, one because Louise does not deserve to be obsessed over in such a way, and two because one person should not be given the power of obsessive love over another.
Dear lucifer,
Kick-ass title. I love your point about obsession. I would take it one step further. This isn’t about sex, but rather about, The Narrator’s need to feel needed. When they don’t have someone to latch onto they lament not just life but movement, “What is the point of movement…breathe the dead.” (Winterson 107-108). I deposit that they are left genderless not so that “we can see ourselves in them” or some other bullshit but because they have done such little introspection that they don’t even know their gender. They don’t care about themself so they want to sustain someone who is worth a damn.
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish,
Carmine “Red” Zingiber
First, what a title. I love the way you draw on the emotional implication of having a juxtaposition of these words and phrases, almost tying together the insatiable hunger that the speaker has to be wanted. There is most definitely a lot to say about the way that power is asserted through the vocabulary chosen by the speaker. But what about that? I would love to hear more about the power imbalance point you have made, because I feel it could be an amazingly strong argument about how relationship dynamics are portrayed throughout the novel. All from a bowl of soup. Incredible.