Talk to me (just not with your mouth full please)

Chapter 2- Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion

In the past, the act of eating used to be way more important than it is now, almost ritualistic. With meals taking so long and so much effort to prepare, it is no wonder that they were. Eating together as a family was a no-brainer, and it was a very important time of bonding and discussion. Today's society has gotten to the point where we can simply pop out to a fast-food restaurant and eat it on the go, or we can order pizza and it will be at our front doors in 30 minutes, with little or no effort on our parts. Because of how easily accessible  food is, we have begun to lose an appreciation for the "ceremony" of the meal. That makes it harder for us today to understand how symbolic and important eating is in literature.

In a story, when people share a meal with each other, it very often signifies that something else, something deeper is going on behind the scenes.  Foster asserts that this "something" is an act of communion, or at least a symbol of how the people in the meal relate with one another. Eating is necessary to life, and it is such a private, personal thing that it should be considered a privilege to share that experience with someone, like Robin Fox says in her anthropological analysis of food and eating.

Eating with someone is a show of trust. For instance, in The Giver by Lois Lowry, each family eats their meal with one another and it is a very important time. At the beginning of the book, there is a passage talking about one such meal: 

"Who wants to be the first tonight, for feelings?" Jonas's father asked, at the conclusion of their evening meal. 

It was one of the rituals, the evening telling of feelings... Their parents, of course, were part of the ritual; they, too, told their feelings each evening.

This demonstrates just how sacred the meal is to the characters of this book. It is a ritualistic time each day that the whole family comes together to discuss their feelings. It is a place of trust and acceptance, symbolized by the trust they must have for each other to have a meal with each other in the first place.

But it can also symbolize something negative.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, Edmund eats the turkish delight in the presence of the White Witch. This symbolizes him opening himself up to her, him trusting her. In lowering his defenses and succumbing to the temptation of the dessert, he has become vulnerable and the White Witch takes advantage of that. He trusts the Witch enough to engage in the personal act of eating in her presence. In my opinion, the act of his eating is the very moment when he has committed to betraying his siblings, even if he does not yet know it himself. If you remember that scene, the Witch looks on with a hunger, an earnest anticipation of his response, using his vulnerability as he eats to tempt him more.

In the Bible, in the original communion, the Last Supper, there is a lot going on. Even if this meal is not allegorical (because it is the original) there are still many aspects of it that reflect meals throughout literature. This meal is the very epitome of a symbol of community. It is Jesus breaking his body and pouring out his blood for all believers as a symbol of communion in him and community with each other. But other than that, the meal went kind of poorly. In a Bible study I was doing over the Biblical allusions in the Lord of the Rings, our pastor said, "If a person leaves before the meal is over, that should make you immediately think: HE IS THE BAD GUY." He said that since a meal represents trust and community, someone leaving in the middle of it should be a clear sign that he is betraying that trust and community, and it should let the reader know that something bad is about to happen. My mind jumped straight to the Last Supper. In the account of the Last Supper found in John 13, Jesus says, "One of you is going to betray me. It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." He dips the piece of bread and gives it to Judas Iscariot. Satan possesses Judas, and Judas gets up and leaves the meal. Not only did he leave in the middle of the meal, he left before the most important part of the meal, the most defining moment of the Last Supper, the breaking of the bread, and the drinking of the cup. That is the very part of the meal that demonstrated the community they had with Jesus, and Judas leaving before that showed that he was not part of that community. It also foreshadowed the moment when Judas would betray Jesus to his death later that evening.

Other meals in literature, like the awkward, stuffy and tense meal at the beginning of the Great Gatsby with Daisy, Tom, and Nick, can symbolize this dysfunction of relationships. Since eating is such a personal matter, it reveals personal things about its participants.