In Appetite: Food as a Metaphor, Alice Jones poem, Anorexia ties in all the feelings of being anorexic and the seriousness of it. More importantly though, Jones is able to portray the look of someone who is anorexic by executing imagery. I believe Jones creates this realistic imagery with her word choice.
She starts out by calling anorexia an "ancient art", or being able to "exist on air", and "refusing the burden of flesh". By using those strong word phrases Jones is able to create an image in my head where as if she would have primarily described it any other way, I would have probably not understood that she was describing anorexia. This word choice really produces this realistic picture of a girl being tortured by her body, trying to rid her self of the burden and exist on what she wants and thinks is pretty.
From here Jones describes this burden in disgusting tones by referring to fat as yellow globs. She gives the tone of depression by saying they pad and cushion her body in undesired places. These descriptive words are able to set her tone. This depressive tone is conveyed throughout the entire poem through Jones word choices. Later on Jones describes the body after it has been "honed" down. She then does the item that I believe is most effective in her poem. She compares this "honed" body to a bird. This comparison is exquisite! Jones gives me something to picture when she describes this "bird" being held together by only silk, liquid, and air. She doesn't fly because she does not have the strength but instead she floats, yet she is flightless. From this point Jones carefully describes the most dangerous part of anorexia. She does this in a subtle way. Jones refers to death as the black cold and gives it the characteristic of deadliness. Even with death Jones is able to create imagery with just her careful word choices.
Alice Jones portrays anorexia in a way I have never heard before. With her word choices she is able to create imagery that is so realistic I could picture every scene she created. Not only did her word choice create imagery, but it also was able to convey her tone.
Libby,
ReplyDeleteAs you said in your post, Jones portrayed anorexia in a way I have never considered either. We hear how it often is a matter of flawed self image, but other that being told the anorexic generally envision themselves as heavier than they are, we aren't generally given anything more than that. I like that she gave a bit of insight as to what those who suffer from the disorder might be striving for on a more emotional level. The one thing I still wonder about though, is the way she eluded to her relationship with her mother in writing "Hating the yellow globs of fat in any form... but mostly those that mark her as her mother's- the encumbering curves of hip or breast... trying to undo all the knots the female body has tied..." I wondered if her mother is in some way responsible for some event in her life that she was somehow traumatized by; I imagined her being a neglectful mother and maybe a loose woman who perhaps invited a bad male element into their lives from which the writer is now trying to protect herself. Or possibly she suffered no singular negative event, but simply takes avoiding ending up like her mother to the extreme. I agree as well that her word choices were very carefully selected- for such a short poem, it embodies a lot of substance.