The Hungry Self (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Kim Chernin
- First Published: 1985
- Type of Work: Social criticism
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, Sociology, Psychology
- Subjects: Mothers, Parents and children, Self, Obsession, Women’s issues, Women, Food, Rites or ceremonies, Women’s movement, Androgyny, Psychoanalysis or psychoanalysts, Career women, Eating disorders
Form and Content
Emerging from the intersection of female identity and the prevalence of eating disorders among American women, The Hungry Self: Women, Eating, and Identity asks why so many women have a troubled relationship with food. In answering this question, Kim Chernin draws upon her work counseling women suffering from bulimia and anorexia. She argues that underlying women’s obsession with food are the basic components of a rite of passage, the elements of a transition from one stage of life to the next. The problem of food thus becomes its failure as such a...
[The entire page is 2121 words long]
