{"id":2270,"date":"2023-09-17T22:01:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T02:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=2270"},"modified":"2023-09-17T22:01:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T02:01:02","slug":"the-soupening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2023\/09\/17\/the-soupening\/","title":{"rendered":"the soupening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen she lifted the soup spoon to her lips how I longed to be that innocent piece of stainless steel\u201d (Winterson 36), evokes the type of love that is displayed in <\/span>Romeo and Juliet<\/span><\/i>. However, with a closer read, both of these love connections can clearly be classified as obsessive rather than passionate, controlling rather than romantic. <\/span>The all-consuming language (\u201cthe blood in my body\u201d and \u201cresurrected\u201d) as the narrator describes Louise simply eating soup gives way to sexual connotations (\u201ctake me in your mouth\u201d and \u201cpleasure\u201d). It\u2019s not simply an objectification of the lover, but a desire to be her only source of sustenance, to have ownership. <\/span><\/p>\n

Louise\u2019s 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 \u201cmouth,\u201d \u201clips,\u201d and \u201cblood,\u201d in tandem with \u201cvegetable stock,\u201d \u201cvermicelli,\u201d \u201csoup,\u201d and \u201cbutter.\u201d 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\u2019s 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\u2019s end, because if Louise remains unaware of these feelings she is likely to hurt them, or even if she is aware, it\u2019s almost impossible to not hurt the people you love. There\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen she lifted the soup spoon to her lips how I longed to be that innocent piece of stainless steel\u201d (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 … Continue reading the soupening<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346798],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}