It also kinda shows how much of a Sue/self-insert Anita is. Bella was the same way...come to think of it...I've noticed a lot of Sues in literature that are girls who are just naturally very skinny (with the right amount of curves), who never eat or really exercise. Lot of wish fulfillment going on.
Yeah, that's my bet for why it's that way, at least out of character. "If only I got be a hottie with a tiny waist but not have to diet...I know, if I just never got hungry, it would be so much easier! I'll have that be the case with Anita. It makes sense for her since she has a high-stress job and stuff!"
My other bets are
- Food, like sex, is something that Good Girls Don't Want. It sounds weird, I know, but there's actually a long history of food associated with sex, physical appetites as metaphor for sexual appetite, etc. The commercials with a sexy girl eating a big sloppy cheeseburger are hot, but the second it's a fat woman eating it, suddenly it's gross and wrong. Likewise, women being sexy and having sex is culturally demanded, yet you can't be a "slut" either. So Anita only eating because she HAS to could be analogous to how she only has sex when she HAS to. It could possibly point to guilt that LKH feels about eating; I hesitate to probe that far into the author's personal business, but she's been pretty open about her weight struggles and I know that feeling guilty for eating is hardly an unusual thing among women given the culture we live in. So Anita gets to eat and not feel bad because omg it's JUSTIFIED! But she still has to be coaxed into it because she's such a good girl!
- A way to make her naturally thin without being one of those vain shallow dieting girls who care about gaining a pound, ew!
- Food as weakness. We know that LKH has really bizarre standards for what is weakness and strength in emotional terms. For instance, here caring about someone she 'loves' being injured and having emotions over how she had to kill someone she knew are called hysterics. Phobias, being traumatized over horrible things, not being callous monsters with no regard for the lives of others, all these things are framed as emotional weakness. Why then should she not have the same crazy standards for physical strength? Like, say, believing it's strong to not need or want food and to push yourself to the limits without it? It could just be another Anita Is The Toughest thing.
no subject
Yeah, that's my bet for why it's that way, at least out of character. "If only I got be a hottie with a tiny waist but not have to diet...I know, if I just never got hungry, it would be so much easier! I'll have that be the case with Anita. It makes sense for her since she has a high-stress job and stuff!"
My other bets are
- Food, like sex, is something that Good Girls Don't Want. It sounds weird, I know, but there's actually a long history of food associated with sex, physical appetites as metaphor for sexual appetite, etc. The commercials with a sexy girl eating a big sloppy cheeseburger are hot, but the second it's a fat woman eating it, suddenly it's gross and wrong. Likewise, women being sexy and having sex is culturally demanded, yet you can't be a "slut" either. So Anita only eating because she HAS to could be analogous to how she only has sex when she HAS to. It could possibly point to guilt that LKH feels about eating; I hesitate to probe that far into the author's personal business, but she's been pretty open about her weight struggles and I know that feeling guilty for eating is hardly an unusual thing among women given the culture we live in. So Anita gets to eat and not feel bad because omg it's JUSTIFIED! But she still has to be coaxed into it because she's such a good girl!
- A way to make her naturally thin without being one of those vain shallow dieting girls who care about gaining a pound, ew!
- Food as weakness. We know that LKH has really bizarre standards for what is weakness and strength in emotional terms. For instance, here caring about someone she 'loves' being injured and having emotions over how she had to kill someone she knew are called hysterics. Phobias, being traumatized over horrible things, not being callous monsters with no regard for the lives of others, all these things are framed as emotional weakness. Why then should she not have the same crazy standards for physical strength? Like, say, believing it's strong to not need or want food and to push yourself to the limits without it? It could just be another Anita Is The Toughest thing.