Introduction
Could someone hate herself so much because society is pushing her to the brink of self-destruction? In this time and age where a beautiful woman is defined by modern media, we seldom chance upon a plump girl seductively posing on top of that sleek car in television commercials. More often, it is those girls with sucked-in cheeks and reed-thin figures that dominate our television screens and magazine covers. This is why, women, especially young girls, are very obsessed about their bodies that they are resorting to the most ridiculous things just to attain that “ideal” desirable body most people would love to see. Even if it means depriving herself of food and self-dignity, some girls would even risk their lives just to duplicate that Kate Moss supermodel figure. This is essentially what Eavan Boland’s poem “Anorexic” is imparting to its readers. In this poem, Boland brought to life vivid images and metaphors to reveal an accusing finger that points upon society, which supports a culture where females are forced to exist with undue expectations about their physical appearance.
With regards to her body
From the beginning of Boland’s “Anorexic”, readers can vicariously feel the self-loathing the speaker is trying to emulate with regards to her body. She mentions the sinfulness of her being; that her own flesh “is a heretic” and her body “is a witch.” Using these metaphors, we could relate to the events that happened in 17th century America where witches and heretics are scoffed at by everyone in society. The people accused of heresy and witchcraft were burned at the stake. Apart from using Puritan metaphors the speaker about her body, she moves on enumerating the specific body parts she considers most heretic, the sensual “curves and paps, and wiles.” Readers would wonder why the poem’s speaker would single out these intimate features of her body for “torching”. Why didn’t she choose her hair, knees, tongue, or arms? The speaker of the poem goes on by chiding herself calling her body “curveless” after she has “vomited / her hunger”. This is the point where she announced that “the bitch is burning”. In the second half of the poem, the speaker revealed that hating her body was bought about by a man, “who plays the dual role of savior and destroyer in the woman’s life” (Hill, 2001).
A biblical reference
We can also find in the poem a biblical reference to Adam and Eve. We all know that the story of human creation through Adam and Eve, where women came into being when God took a rib from Adam. In this poem, the speaker used the familiar figures of Adam and Eve to symbolize the difference in society’s treatment of men and women. It is a difference, the poet contends, driven by a male-dominated power structure that allows men the freedom to be and to look normal as they are. That same structure, however, sets up a standard for women to meet, especially when it comes to their appearances. In the poem, the speaker despises her sexuality and the parts of her body that most represent it. As she slips into the identity of Eve, however, she calls Adam’s ribcage “a sensuous enclosure,” a pleasurable description from the same woman who abhors sensuousness within herself. She thinks of his heart as a “warm drum,” his breath as a “song,” and his “sleeping side” as a comforting, haven in which she used to exist. As these engaging descriptions indicate, it is man’s physicality that is more powerful and more dominant than the female, even in the words of the poem’s speaker who is a woman. Hill (2001) suggested that the point of the Adam and Eve metaphor is that society is inequitable in treating the two sexes. That it becomes so “all-encompassing that some women themselves begin to accept – even embrace – their lower position”.
Towards the end of Boland’s poem, readers would now hear that the speaker is Eve. She is now more and more obsessed with her quest to return to Adam’s body. With her intention, she would be more than willing to sacrifice the intimate parts of her own body, even to the point of suffering. Hill (2001) reasoned out the end part of the poem alludes to the man’s sex organ to praise and to imitate. Back inside his ribcage, she “will grow / angular and holy.” Here, sexual imagery is directly associated with religious imagery. The phallic symbol, characterized as “angular,” is sacred, and the thinner, the more “curveless” she becomes, the more she will resemble it. Eve’s need to lose herself inside the male body is evidence of how drastically social pressure has affected her. Her independence as a woman is so weakened that she wants to forfeit her existence altogether. It is that existence that she refers to as “pain” in saying that she can grow “past pain” by sleeping next to Adam’s heart in the form of a rib. She hopes that by doing so she can “forget / in a small space / the fall” from her secure, yet questionable, sanctuary.
Mythology and sexual imagery
Although the metaphor of the “fall” of humankind from the grace of God had become commonplace in some writings, its usage in Boland’s “Anorexic” emulates the mixture of creation mythology and sexual imagery, which provides an interesting twist to an otherwise stale idea. Eve wants to forget that she was ever tempted by a snake, gave in, and, thereby plunged the human race into sin and suffering. She carries the guilt of introducing greed into the world, and her only salvation is to give up her “evil” womanhood and become a safe, benign bone in Adam’s body again. According to Hill (2001), the poem’s metaphors “forked dark” and “python needs” conjure up frightening images of snakes and devils and people falling into bottomless pits. But, the final three lines of the poem give new meaning to forked dark and needful pythons. With the sexually charged description of “heaving to hips and breasts / and lips and heat / and sweat,” the “forked dark” and “python” now become symbols of female and male genitalia. Once again, Boland reverts to sensuous imagery to emphasize the desire to destroy what is most womanly, what is prominently female.
Despite the strong sexual imagery of the poem, where we see a woman is surrendering to a male dominator, we are reminded that this is a poem recited by a woman suffering anorexia in the final two adjectives “fat and greed”. We could almost relate to the voice that speaks in the poems because the language used is vivid, the sentiment is palpable, and the actions of the speaker are unbelievable. But all these are intentional because women and girls suffering the disorder of anorexia experiences depression about their looks and Boland made the poem sound that she is indeed taking things too far. On one level, the poem aptly depicts the distorted mindset of an anorexic woman and does a good job portraying the emaciated effects of starvation. On a deeper level, however, the placement of blame on a society dominated by males appears overdone in the references to sexuality and the destruction of the physical features most commonly associated with sexual behavior.
Anorexia in a modern society
When translated, anorexia nervosa means “not eating because of nervous causes.” Indeed, most women suffer from anorexia because of their intense fear of gaining weight or being fat, even though underweight. They experience related body image distortion or denial of the seriousness of current low body weight. Generally, there is no actual significant loss of appetite in anorectics. Their fear of gaining weight persists and may even increase despite simultaneous weight loss. It is a deadly disorder with unknown causes, but we all know that the perception of society is contributory to the rise of anorexia nervosa cases. Boland’s poem uses sarcasm in all her vivid descriptions of the destruction of the female body and the praise of the male body. It is about time that society should cease expecting what an ideal woman should look like. As media has the most powerful influence over society, change has to be made in representing women as sex objects and obliging them to look like the reed-thin models that parade almost all commodities available in the market. Women themselves should learn how to stop obsessing about their looks because that’s how their man would want them to look. Young girls should be educated and empowered that they can also be beautiful, despite all their imperfections. Ultimately, Boland’s poem serves to become a clarion call for everyone, not just for women, that we all should not give in to pressures that society dictates. The pain and suffering of anorexia is real and we all need to understand that society needs to change its perception to halt this disorder from eating up young girls to their annihilation.
References
Boland, Eaven. “Anorexia”.
Hill, Pamela Steed. Critical Essay on “Anorexic,” Poetry for Students, vol. 12, New York: The Gale Group, 2001.