Apple-tising!

The construct of women as “sexual deviants” certainly begins with the apple.  Eve’s uncontrollable appetite seems to become a metaphor for female desire, which throughout history has been a censured and controversial subject matter. In Victorian Literature and the Anorexic Body, Anna Krugovoy Silver suggests that: “Victorians used to define the ideal woman [as] – spiritual, non-sexual, self-disciplined” (3). Before Eve eats the fruit, she is the embodiment of all these qualities. Yet, after she eats the fruit, she loses all these qualities. This is further explored in books four and nine of John Milton’s "Paradise Lost".  

In book four Eve is described as “accomplished”(4.660) because of her innocence, modesty and submissiveness to both God and Adam. The catalytic moment of her temptation changes all this:

In this passage, Eve’s movements are being described as impulsive through the words “rash” and “plucked”. As Eve devours the fruit, Earth “[feels] the wound” and it is interesting to note that the Earth is gendered as a she, who in this moment can metaphorically be seen as the object of consumption. This is because when Eve eats the apple, she essentially eats away at the paradise God creates for her and Adam.  Eve transgression spurs on her voracious appetite, she greedily “[engorges] without restraint… heightened with wine, jocund and boon” (9.791 -973).  She is intoxicated by the fruits power... And in some ways, this can read as an orgasmic experience because the word 'heightened' suggests the heightening of a type pleasure. In Tamar Heller and Patricia Moran's Scenes of the Apple, they call this experience with food 'libidinal' which is a "bodily and sexual experience [that] draws on the dual association of the mouth"(3). This could be why eating the apple changes both Adam and Eve’s perception of each other. Their initial hunger/appetite for the apple, develops into a sexual hunger, which they now have for each other: “he on Eve / Began to cast lascivious eyes, she him / As wantonly repaid; in lust they burn” ”(9.1013-1015). We know what happens next! Nonetheless, Eve is blamed for the incident and is "despoiled"(9.1138) of any ideal qualities, and this because she lacks "control over [her] body and its desires are enacted through the [lack of] control of food intake"(Silver, 52).

Overall, this first image of the apple is an example of its negative symbolism. The idea of temptation becomes a prominent theme which seems to be at the crux of children's literature, where we often see children praised for denying their appetites and equally punished for caving into them. In my next post, we will be looking at the apple from Snow White.

References

Heller, Tamar, and Patricia Moran. Scenes Of The Apple. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Print.

Milton, John, and Gordon Teskey. Paradise Lost. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Print.

Silver, Anna Krugovoy. Victorian Literature And The Anorexic Body. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.