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Symbolism Of Food

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This paper examines the use of food as a motif in Indian Literature focusing on three contemporary short stories that have used ‘food longing’ to articulate the experience of marginalisation and oppression that the characters undergo. In all three texts, the characters desire a particular food item that is not accessible to them – either because of inaccessibility or prohibition. Thus food in the three stories becomes metaphoric of their experiences as well as the source of their resistance of the hegemonic structures of caste and gender that seek to keep them in their place.
Keywords: Food as symbol, resistance, marginalization, identity
Food is an important aspect of our life, especially in a nation like India where poverty and hunger are …show more content…

The story begins with the lower caste characters fantasizing about the paddy grown by the upper caste lords, illegally on public land – the Olegere plain, that the tehsildar had announced they would be allowed to harvest and take home. For the Dalits, food is a major preoccupation not because of their access to it but because of the scarcity.The Dalit villagers fantasise about the paddy that they will be allowed to harvest, especially significant since it belongs to the upper castes and talk about the feasts that they have attended. Traditionally, the upper castes have exerted control over lower caste body and identity. In the story, the Dalits are given an opportunity to subvert the power structure – by being given control over upper caste …show more content…

Buaji, under whose strict control food is portioned out in the family, becomes a representation of patriarchal authority, policing the women and servants (representing the lower classes) into submission and doling out male privilege. Her control over the family and domestic space is absolute and manifest in the way daily food rations are doled out “with meticulous care that not an extra grain of rice, sugar or dal ever entered the kitchen.” The pickles, like the paddy in the earlier mentioned story represent the ‘taboo’ and the denial of which defines the identity of the narrator and the other women in the household. The narrator’s ‘longing’ for them becomes a manifestation of her desire to escape her state of

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