The fruit
The fruits, I believe, are echoes of the many stories of women being tempted and punished for their hunger and thirst. Weren't they all punished for their sensuality, and how that sensuality might corrupt men? We all know these stories, but we rarely think about them in such immediate and vibrant terms.
When Eve bit into that apple, what sensual joys did she discover in the new taste? Was it a red apple? Was it crisp? Was she delighted with the flavor and the texture, and did she want to share those wonders with Adam?
When Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds, was she delighting in the sweetness and tang that was, perhaps, absent in her life as the mortal daughter of a Goddess? Rachel Pollack has made the case that Persephone became a Goddess because she ate the fruit, and that she became Demeter's equal by eating the fruit of the Underworld. Had she not, she would have not become immortal and powerful.
When Cinderella ate the apple, wasn't she tempted by its beauty? And wasn't she rescued from that lapse only by the ministration of a man?
And the goblins, I believe, are the fairytale agents of temptation. Notice how they are all men - hideous men, who bear gorgeous fruits that look and taste like nothing else .That look, that temptation, is as dangerous as any sensual temptation in the world of a Victorian woman. Only her sister can save Laura from the repercussions of her passion. Isn't that a wonderfully transgressive idea for the times?
(But no, I do not believe that the transgression is "Sapphic.")
posted by teabird at 8:48 AM
3 Comments:
That is the irony of the fall, expressed by others before, the idea that the tree of knowledge brought a curse but also a blessing that made us human (or like God even)--the awareness of both good and evil. But Christina perceives it in feminine terms that I don't think anyone else had done before.
Fruit is a re-occuring theme. Fruits of our labor, forbidden fruits, and so on.
And by the way, Eve didn't eat an apple from the forbidde tree! As punishment for eating the fruit, not just banishment from the Garden of Edon for the Adam and Eve, but both the garden and the tree were banished from the earth. Since we still have apples and apple trees, it simply couldn't have an apple.
Some have proposed that the fruit eaten ws a fig (again it's soemthing we still have) but that the fruits properties disappeared not the actual fruit itself. So we have a taste of what it was but not the whole experience.The sensation of pleasure as we bite into the fruit is a bit of what the real thing must have beeen like.
Interesting though all the apple asociations: Eden, the golden apple that Paris sought, Johnny Appleseed, Snow White etc.
I wonder if the forbidden fruit might have been the act of creation?**CV
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