Food, Consumption and the Body in Contemporary Women's Fiction

by Sarah Sceats

Overview

This study explores the subtle and complex significance of food and eating in the fiction of contemporary women writers. Sarah Sceats' lively analysis demonstrates that food and its consumption are not simply fundamental to life but are inseparable from questions of gender, power and control. Focusing on the work of Doris Lessing, Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, Michèle Roberts and Alice Thomas Ellis, she makes powerful connections between food and love, motherhood, sexual desire, self identity and social behavior, and engages with issues as diverse as cannibalism and eating disorders.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521661539
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/20/2000
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.79(d)
Lexile:	1460L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. The food of love: mothering, feeding, eating and desire; 2. Cannibalism and Carter: fantasies of omnipotence; 3. Eating, starving and the body: Doris Lessing and others; 4. Sharp appetites: Margaret Atwood's consuming politics; 5. Food and manners: Roberts and Ellis; 6. Social eating: identity, communion and difference; Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

"Even a quick review of contemporary volumes on food and literary criticism reveals a sort of sheepish, amused treatment of the subject, as if it were to light a topic to explore in a really serious book. To Sceats's credit her study argues for the profound role played by fook and eating in most people's lives. The arguments are solid and sophisitcated, the writing clear, energetic, and engaging. Sure to interest a wide variety of readers, this volume is recommended for upper-division undergraduates and faculty." Choice

From the Publisher