The Symbolic Use of Hunger in Literature :: essays research papers

The symbolic exercising of starve in literatureThrough come in history, both men and women adopt struggled trying to achieve unattainable goals in the face of close-minded societies. Authors adopt 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 higher up prejudice is many times illustrated with the metaphor of hunger. Not only do people suffer from somatogenetic 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 Chopins The Awakening, Hugh Wolfe of Rebecca Harding Davis behavior in the Iron Mills, Jane Eyre of Charlotte Brontes novel, and the woman being force fed in Djuna Barnes How It Feels to Be Forcibly Fed every last(predicate) suffer from an insatiable hunger, which, in m ost cases, ultimately is not fulfilled. Poets such as Anna Wickham also take up the plight of humanity using hunger as a nitty-gritty to illustrate the feeling of deprivation. Although all of these characters come from different walks of life, they share 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 center 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 balloting and Anna Wickhams poem The Affinity describing the angst of a deprived wife, both depict women who lived during the aboriginal 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 disinclined to do s o, found herself in a world where she felt trapped. She power saw how women were supposed to behave but did not have that behavior instilled in herself. She felt confined by her husbands expectations, and did not want to live out the typical role of wife and mother. When Robert came into her life, she began to feel that she was being awakened. She was beginning to determine life in a new light and the hunger for veer began to emerge.