“Ham or Trichinosis?”: Conceptual Metaphors of Food in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Writings

• Authors: Augustynowicz, Nina

Abstracts

EN

The aim of this article is to discuss conceptual food metaphors found in the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Using the multidisciplinary framework of cognitive food studies, the writer’s poetry and journalism are shown to contain conceptualisations resulting from the changes in Victorian foodscapes. Gilman was aware of the commercial contamination of food, which involved its adulteration with harmful additives and unhygienic methods of industrial food production. These practices led to a gradual loss of trust towards the alimentary sphere. In this perspective, the anxieties of dealing with omnipresent adulteration and uncertainty about the quality of food delivered to the plate, which had weight in particular in the case of women in charge of a household, became recreated into food-based metaphors that helped to conceptualise the fear and later travelled into other domains of Gilman’s preoccupations, such as the social responsibility of journalism. In a curious mix of socially, historically and individually guided experiences, Gilman’s metaphors serve as a testimony to the concerns of the late Victorian period.

Keywords

EN

Keywords: Victorian period; Charlotte Perkins Gilman; conceptual metaphors; food studies; food adulteration Słowa klucze: epoka wiktoriańska; Charlotte Perkins Gilman; metafory pojęciowe; studia nad jedzeniem; skażenie żywności

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Bielsko-Bialski
• Journal: Świat i Słowo
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 32(1)
• Pages: 45-60

Dates

published

2020-11-02

Contributors

author

Augustynowicz, Nina

Identifiers

DOI

doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2617075