Post History
Often reading analyses of books and films, I find that the analytics derive conclusions from the specific food or beverage that a character consumes. The food appears to always be symbolic of somet...
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-12T21:57:36Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/42938 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T11:07:46Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/42938 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Often reading analyses of books and films, I find that the analytics derive conclusions from the specific food or beverage that a character consumes. The food appears to _always_ be symbolic of something. Now, I'm not completely oblivious to what food says about a character. But here's the problem: in my fantasy novel, I have people eating fruit, decorating rooms with flowers, using plants in metaphors - I'm giving flora a strong presence, because I want to emphasise the society's strong bond to the earth and the earth's natural cycles. So, I am, in fact, using fruit as a symbol. But then, exactly because that's how I use fruit, my character might be eating a banana because a banana is what's in season. No phallic subtext intended. Which leads me to the question - can a banana ever be just a banana? Or do I always need to be aware of _all_ the messages each bit of food brings with it, and write under those constraints? (This question is not specific to bananas. Freud just made bananas funny.)
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-03-04T00:20:06Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 55