Descriptions of food are very prominent in Barbara Pym's twelve novels. They are used on one hand for purely comic purposes. But more significantly, they evolve into a language with a structure and set of rules. To expose the language of food inherent in Pym's fiction, I have employed a combination of social history, structural anthropology and semiology. Roland Barthes' application of structural linguistics to food, and his concern with its' symbolic nature hold particular bearing to this study. The language of food functions on three interrelated levels in Pym: a social level where groups are defined and hierarchised; a gendered level where the sexes are defined and differentiated; and a more personal level where an individual either communes or alienates him/herself from a given group. Identity, whether national, social, sexual or individual, is confirmed in relation to eating habits and roles surrounding food preparation and consumption. With the help of complex strategies of irony, Pym uses the language of food to signal an interest in social and gender reform by presenting the artificiality of social constructs and gender stereotypes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.60628 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Collu, Gabrielle |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001260444, proquestno: AAIMM72243, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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