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You are what you eat: the politics of eating in the novels of Margaret Atwood
Twentieth Century Literature, Fall, 1995 by Emma Parker
What a luxury. The counters are like candies, made of peppermint, cool like that. Humbugs, those were called. I would like to put them into my mouth. They would taste also of lime. The letter C. Crisp, lightly acid on the tongue, delicious. (149)
Like the other novels, Cat's Eye is centered on a power struggle. Here, however, Atwood focuses on the relationship between girls. Cordelia is Elaine's best friend. She is also her tormentor. With her accomplices, Grace and Carol, Cordelia tortures Elaine into believing she is "nothing" and sets her on a cruel program of reform. Elaine's powerlessness and her struggle to overcome the psychological hold her tormentors have on her is traced by her relationship to food. The relationship between eating and power is epitomized by Elaine's father. Whenever he appears in the novel he is eating voraciously and, as he eats, he speaks with authority on the subjects of science, philosophy, ecology, and culture. Elaine internalizes the association between eating and power that she sees operating in the world around her. She dreads going to school, where she cannot escape Cordelia, and in the mornings is unable to eat her breakfast. She identifies with her father's associate, Mr. Banerji, because, as a foreigner, he too feels alien and isolated. Like Elaine's, his powerlessness is reflected by his non-eating and the way he bites his hands. At the Christmas dinner he shuffles his food around his plate and leaves most of it. Elaine relates this sense of powerlessness specifically to food: "He's afraid of us. He has no idea what we will do next, what impossibilities we will expect of him, what we will make him eat" (130). However, correspondingly, Elaine's power is also reflected by her eating. Her encounter with the Virgin Mary in the ravine induces a sense of protection which enables Elaine to defy Cordelia's control. Her act of defiance is accompanied by an act of eating. Leaving the house for school, Elaine ignores her friends and walks on alone. They follow her along the street insulting and criticizing her:
I can hear the hatred, but also the need. They need me for this, and I no longer need them. There's something hard in me, crystalline, a kernel of glass. I cross the street and continue along, eating my licorice. (193)
Henceforth, the balance of power begins to change between Elaine and Cordelia. The scene in which Elaine threatens to eat Cordelia contributes to this. Playing in a graveyard at dusk, Elaine teases her friend that she is a vampire and will suck her blood out. While Cordelia maintains a facade of disbelief, she is unnerved by the possibility this may be true. From this point on, the positions of power the two girls have assumed are irrevocably altered.
