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.

Read More

Apples vs Figs.

 You are probably wondering why there is an image of fig in this second post, but rest assured, this fig plays an important part of understanding our precious apples. We all believe that the ‘forbidden fruit’ is an apple only because art and literature has successfully helped fill in the blanks Genesis left out.  The unnamed fruit from the tree of knowledge could have been anything: a strawberry, a cherry, a peach or even a fig, which many critics have argued is the true forbidden fruit of Eden. In Food at the time of the Bible, Miriam Vamosh agrees the fruit is a fig, because both Adam and Eve use fig leaves to cover their naked selves in Genesis 3:7. She argues figs are the fruit “which they [have] eaten... the very thing by which they [are] corrupted by"(51). If this is the case, why do apples replace this representation? I decided to do a taste off between the two fruits, to draw my own conclusions on which fruit would be symbolically better suited for the Garden of Eden. 

In the fresh fruit section of Sainsbury’s there is a wide range of apples: granny smith, pink lady, and golden delicious, royal gala and Braeburn apples. For this taste test, I chose Braeburn apples. The apple is a rich red colour and has streaks of light green running through it. Its skin is smooth and it smells refreshing, and closing my fingers around the fruit is easy because it is round. When I bite into the apple, it sweet yet subtle spicy taste fills my mouth.  The figs however, are quite limited in this particular store, so I was only able to get the standard Evita variety of figs which are grown in South Africa. The fig is a deep purple and much smaller than the apple. Its skin is smooth, but firm and feels like leather. The fig smells earthy and bland. When I bite into the fig, its sweet yet subtle acidic taste fills my mouth. I think the apple is better suited to being the forbidden fruit because of its sweeter taste, colour and shape. The extract below taken from Erika Janik’s book Apple: A Global History also draws on this:

(Page, 32).

Janik also suggests another reason the apple is chosen is because "the Latin word malum means both ‘apple’ and ‘evil’ ”(31). This interpretation makes sense because the fruit becomes a metaphor for sin, which in the eyes of God is seen as the ultimate evil. The 'evil' the apple may be referring to certainly has something to do with anxieties over female sexuality, because Eve's appetite and her choice of eating becomes a metaphor for desire. I will be examining this more in my third post apple lovers, so stay tuned for more!

References:

Janik, Erika. Apple. London: Reaktion Books, 2011. Print.

Vamosh, Miriam Feinberg. Food At The Time Of The Bible. [Nashville, Tenn.]: Abingdon, 2004. Print.

Read More