Poem: Eat Me by Patience Agbabi (title, Alice in wonderland reference – warped reality)
Key Points/Arguments
The objectifying scopophilia of the lover, mocks and overpowers de-humanising misogyny with dark humour.
The regular and dehumanising repeats of the speakers lifestyle is reflected through the poem.
The lover holds a biblical, creationist role in which the speaker serves and pleasured him in a revolting and objectifying manner.
The poem creates stark contrast between the demobilisation and abandonment of the speaker, with the pleasure and obsession of the
lover
Themes Literary/Dramatic Devices Whole poem
techniques
Influenced by Carol Anne ‘hit thirty’ – abrupt verb and idiom for age and weight Dramatic Monologue
‘cake’, ‘weight’ – half rhyme shows unhappiness and incompleteness
Duffy Vignettes throughout
‘white but the letters were pink’ – innocence but growing flesh
- Feminist ‘didn’t even taste it’ – speed, lack of pleasure, warped reality Male voyeurism – ‘male gaze’, scopophilia
- Dark humour ‘then he asked’ – catalogues behaviour Lawna (gaps), suggest she is disgusted with
Lover has creationist role ‘watch my broad/belly’ – she is objectified, enjambement mirrors expansion herself
‘juggernaut’ – massive imposing force, sacrifices her body for him
Being fat doesn’t remove ‘I can burrow inside’ – parasitical
10 tercets and regular structure shows strict
objectification Multiple Chins, Masses of Cellulite – moulds her, repetition shows obsession food routine
Feedenism is a vehicle for ‘I was his jacuzzi’ – property, waves
misogyny and de-humanising ‘watch me swell like forbidden fruit’ – biblical, links to being wrong and sex
‘his breadfruit’ – nourished by her image
‘lacuna between the speaker’s feelings of
Connotes pleasure of control ‘beached whale on a king size bed/craving a wave’ – immobile, isolated and vulnerable, wants to get out victimhood and her willingness to be taken
‘too fat’x3 anaphora, wants to control her, claustrophobia, he has made her immobile advantage of’ – Mark Roberts
‘I was a tidal wave of flesh’ – metaphor for destructive path with weight, and foreshadows death
‘my globe of a cheek. His flesh, my flesh flowed’ – juxtaposition of lack of movement and trying to
move Title ambiguous, the imperative ‘eat me’ –
‘open wide’ childish language shows power imbalance could be the man speaking before being
‘he whispered’ – he torments her canibalised by the monster he created
‘he drowned’ – repetition creates catharsis in water imagery
‘in my flesh. I drowned’ – caesura represents end of life/relationship
Secondly the food personified by the pink
‘six hours that felt like a week’ – Stockholm syndrome, grief of ended relationship, try to enjoy it letters, insisting on being consumed.
‘his eyes bulging with greed’ – irony, also he is now victim Possible the speaker using the phrase as an
‘there is nothing left in the house to eat’ – darkly comic (bathos) instruction to her partner to perform oral sex.
Throughout her powerful, goddess form is
forshadoed.
Key Points/Arguments
The objectifying scopophilia of the lover, mocks and overpowers de-humanising misogyny with dark humour.
The regular and dehumanising repeats of the speakers lifestyle is reflected through the poem.
The lover holds a biblical, creationist role in which the speaker serves and pleasured him in a revolting and objectifying manner.
The poem creates stark contrast between the demobilisation and abandonment of the speaker, with the pleasure and obsession of the
lover
Themes Literary/Dramatic Devices Whole poem
techniques
Influenced by Carol Anne ‘hit thirty’ – abrupt verb and idiom for age and weight Dramatic Monologue
‘cake’, ‘weight’ – half rhyme shows unhappiness and incompleteness
Duffy Vignettes throughout
‘white but the letters were pink’ – innocence but growing flesh
- Feminist ‘didn’t even taste it’ – speed, lack of pleasure, warped reality Male voyeurism – ‘male gaze’, scopophilia
- Dark humour ‘then he asked’ – catalogues behaviour Lawna (gaps), suggest she is disgusted with
Lover has creationist role ‘watch my broad/belly’ – she is objectified, enjambement mirrors expansion herself
‘juggernaut’ – massive imposing force, sacrifices her body for him
Being fat doesn’t remove ‘I can burrow inside’ – parasitical
10 tercets and regular structure shows strict
objectification Multiple Chins, Masses of Cellulite – moulds her, repetition shows obsession food routine
Feedenism is a vehicle for ‘I was his jacuzzi’ – property, waves
misogyny and de-humanising ‘watch me swell like forbidden fruit’ – biblical, links to being wrong and sex
‘his breadfruit’ – nourished by her image
‘lacuna between the speaker’s feelings of
Connotes pleasure of control ‘beached whale on a king size bed/craving a wave’ – immobile, isolated and vulnerable, wants to get out victimhood and her willingness to be taken
‘too fat’x3 anaphora, wants to control her, claustrophobia, he has made her immobile advantage of’ – Mark Roberts
‘I was a tidal wave of flesh’ – metaphor for destructive path with weight, and foreshadows death
‘my globe of a cheek. His flesh, my flesh flowed’ – juxtaposition of lack of movement and trying to
move Title ambiguous, the imperative ‘eat me’ –
‘open wide’ childish language shows power imbalance could be the man speaking before being
‘he whispered’ – he torments her canibalised by the monster he created
‘he drowned’ – repetition creates catharsis in water imagery
‘in my flesh. I drowned’ – caesura represents end of life/relationship
Secondly the food personified by the pink
‘six hours that felt like a week’ – Stockholm syndrome, grief of ended relationship, try to enjoy it letters, insisting on being consumed.
‘his eyes bulging with greed’ – irony, also he is now victim Possible the speaker using the phrase as an
‘there is nothing left in the house to eat’ – darkly comic (bathos) instruction to her partner to perform oral sex.
Throughout her powerful, goddess form is
forshadoed.
