Food for Thought – Hard to Swallow: Savage Motherhood—and Eggs

by Tara Stevenson Ideas Are Food Eggs Are Motherhood in Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward Medea is the epitome of savage motherhood: upon hearing that her husband, Jason (of the Golden Fleece/Argonauts), is going to marry another woman—despite saving his life many times over and using her magic to help him defeat many enemies—Medea kills their sons in revenge. Chapter one of Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones not only introduces the allusion of Medea; it immediately establishes three additional parallel stories concerning motherhood and birth: the death of Esch’s mother in childbirth; China, a pit bull, giving birth to…

Food for Thought: Hard to Swallow—Apple Pies

Linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson wrote Metaphors We Live By, in which metaphors are argued to be an unconscious cultural construct. They introduce their book through the idea that argument is war and then give a list of phrases that English speakers say  exemplify it: “Your claims are indefensible.” “He attacked every weak point in my argument.” “His criticisms were right on target.” “I demolished his argument.” They then ask the reader to consider a culture where argument is perceived as a dance as opposed to a war. What do we suppose about such a culture? The arguers…