Cannibalism in literature
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
Representation of cannibals exist adjacent to the representation of any culture associated with alterity, political discourse, or blasphemous rhetoric. Homer's Odyssey, Beowulf, Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Flaubert's Salammbo, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Melville's Moby Dick each feature a type of cannibalistic representation that is larger than the ambiguity of cultural versus survival cannibalism.
Contents |
European Literature
Travel Narratives
Travel narratives is a literary genre characterized by the hybridization of reportage and fictional technique. Other aspects of travel literature include the disciplines of ethnography, geography, history, economics, and aesthetics. Travel narratives were used in the ages of discovery to map the world and, during the exploration of the New World, establish traits of indigenous people, survey for gold, and relate back to sovereigns the positives of their investments while encouraging more travel. This style of writing can be traced back to the 1st century.
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus invented the term "cannibal"Template:Cn after arriving in the Bahamas in 1492 during his search for India. The friendly Arawak tribe described an island of enemies, the "Carib" or "Caniba" depending on translation, who, as Columbus described them, ate men with their monstrous dog snouts. The binary of friend and foe, good and evil, man and eater can be traced to this point in Western literature.
European
Cannibalism comes up with surprise frequency in European literature during the High Middle Ages. The symbolism of cannibalism and representation of cannibals is used "as a literary response to the politics of external conquest, internal colonization, and territorial consolidation." References occurring due to the rising influence of colonization and its relation to identity of self and of others categorically unknown.
Charles Dickens
For theorists like James Marlow, Charles Dickens's literary use of cannibalism could be an extension of his personal beliefs and fascinations, becoming more of a psychoanalytical tool, rather than a literary one.
North American Literature
American Literature
"Cannibalism in the Cars" is an 1868 short story by Mark Twain in which the narrator meets a member of Congress who talks about their descent into cannibalism on a train. Twain's use of "parliamentary cannibalism" satirises 19th century American politics.
Toni Morrison uses the "jungle savage" stereotype and imagery to present "polemic points about racial, sexual, and class conflicts in American, African American, and Black Atlantic culture." Her novels The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), and Beloved (1987) use cannibalism in the particular context of black narratives in the white "standard".
The Bluest Eye tells the story of a young African-American girl, Pecola Breedlove, who is regarded as ugly according to the white beauty standard. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, fueling her desire for blue eyes and whiteness. At one point, she purchases a few pieces of candy called Mary Janes, which feature a picture of a beautiful little white girl with blue eyes, called Mary Jane. Pecola fixates on this fictional girl:"Each pale yellow wrapper has a picture on it. A picture of little Mary Jane, for whom the candy is named. Smiling white face. Blond hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking a her out of a world of clean comfort. The eyes are petulant, mischievous. To Pecola they are simply pretty,. She eats the candy, and its sweetness is good. To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane.Morrison uses symbolic cannibalism to represent Pecola's "entrapment in a globalized capitalist system in which intensively plantation-farmed sugar and its teeth-rotting products are signs of Third World peoples' exploitation both as workers and consumers."
Beloved tells the story of a formerly enslaved family whose home is haunted by a malevolent spirit. The titular character, Beloved, "had two dreams: exploding and being swallowed." Morrison again uses the cannibal trope to characterize the exploitation and inner exploration of slavery.
South American Literature
Asian Literature
"Diary of a Madman" is a 1918 short story written by Lu Xun, credited as the first Chinese modern short story. It concerns a "madman" who begins to see "cannibalism" in his community, his family, and ultimately between the lines of Confucian text. The use of cannibalism becomes the catalyst of satire and critique of Chinese society's dependence on Confucian idealism. An effect of this idealism, to Lu Xun, was the cannibalizing of the family.
See also
- Brazilian Cannibals
- Sweeney Todd
- Titus Andronicus
- Laestrygonians
- Diary of a Madman (Lu Xun)
- Cannibalism in the Cars
- The String of Pearls
Various examples
- Classical mythology:
- William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, in which a character is unknowingly served a pie made from the remains of her two sons
- Herman Melville's Typee, a semi-factual account of Melville's voyage to the Pacific Island of Nuku Hiva, where he spent several weeks living among the island's cannibal inhabitants, after which he fled the island fearing to be eaten.
- H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, an 1896 science fiction novel features cannibalism by the more advanced species as a means of survival.
- Jack London's White Fang, in which White Fang attacks and devours Lip-Lip, a rival sled-dog.
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. Among (non-human) Martians, eating one's dead friends is an act of great respect. Some humans adopt the practice.
- In Soylent Green, a 1973 science fiction film starring Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, and Joseph Cotten, Soylent Green is the processed remains of corpses rendered into small green crackers.
- Secrets, a 1973 TV comedy play by Michael Palin and Terry Jones in which some chocolate factory workers fall into a mixing vat and become part of the confectionery
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and its sequels fictionalize the accounts of Ed Gein, turing the cannibal-murderer into an entire family of psychopaths.
- Hannibal Lecter, a fictional character created by Thomas Harris in the 1983 novel Red Dragon, but most famously depicted in Harris's The Silence of the Lambs, released in 1988, and Hannibal
- Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, in which investigators are unknowingly fed the barbequed ribs of a man whose murder they are investigating.
- Eat the Rich, a 1987 black comedy in which a disgruntled waiter and his friends kill the management and arrogant clientele and then fed the bodies to unsuspecting customers.
- Patrick Bateman, a fictional character created by Bret Easton Ellis in the 1987 novel The Rules of Attraction, but most famously depicted in Ellis's American Psycho, released in 1991
- The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, a 1989 film written and directed by Peter Greenaway
- Delicatessen, a 1991 comedy film written and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro
- Eating Raoul, a 1982 black comedy by Paul Bartel
- Sweeney Todd, a play about a barber who kills his customers and sells their flesh as food.
- The famous writer Lu Xun penned a story the Diary of a Madman in which a madman gradually became convinced that the history of Chinese civilization could be summarized in two words, "eat people", and that his friends and relatives all intend to eat him. Also Auntie Xianglin, a 1918 short story.
- Parents, a 1989 film directed by Bob Balaban about a disturbed young boy who suspects his parents are cooking more than just hamburgers on their backyard grill.
- Ravenous, a 1999 black comedy written by Ted Griffen and directed by Antonia Bird. Based loosely on the Donner Party true story.
- Sin City, a film by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, features a character played by Elijah Wood who eats the bodies of prostitutes, as well as forcing them to eat their own severed limbs.
- Cannibal! The Musical, a fictionalized account of Alferd Packer's cannibalism written and directed by Trey Parker of South Park fame, which itself also depicts cannibalism in its episode Scott Tenorman Must Die.
- Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury, a Science Fiction novel in which cannibalism is an essential theme.
- The Republic of Wine: A Novel by Mo Yan, in which cannibalism is practiced by officials in modern China.
- Haunted, a novel by American Author Chuck Palahniuk contains several incidences of cannibalism.
See also