Eating Lolly Corrie Hosking MA BA (Hons) Department of English University of Adelaide September 2004 Abstract There is an overwhelming archive of literature written on so-called 'eating disorders' and the social and cultural contexts that shape these'conditions'. Theories framed by psychiatry, feminism, psychoanalysis and sociology have each presented insights and specific understandings of the causes of the 'disorders' anorexia and bulimia nervosa and the 'type' of people they affect. Although such theories are often presented as objective 'truths', their meanings aÍe constructed in a cultural context. They are often contradictory, frequently ambiguous and regularly paradoxical. Despite the wealth of research being done on 'eating disorders', we are still most likely to read particular and specific explanations that are mostly informed by the psycho-medical discourses, that are preoccupied with anorexia over other forms of eating distress and that neglect the thoughts, theories, language and voices of women with lived experience. My research explores the opposing cultural constructions of anorexia and bulimia against women's personal naratives of life with bulimia. My specific interest in bulimia contests the focus on anorexia in the medical, academic and popular spheres. I address this imbalance, and speculate on why there is such a preoccupation with anorexia over other eating issues in our culture. I believe that this is not a coincidence, for there are deep seated, cultural and historical reasons why our culture demonstrates a fascination with, even admiration for, anorexia. Research into the socio-cultural construction of 'eating disorders' provided a rich and complex resource for developing my novel: Eating Lolly. Eating Lolly follows the developing relationship between Mumma and her daughter, Lolly. It explores the mother- daughter bond, love, family and food. It deals with the experience of pregnancy and motherhood, representing developmental stages, through childhood, adolescence and the forging of identity as a woman in a western cultural context. I explore women's hunger, metaphors of cooking, eating, feeding and being fed. I examine our culture's perceived separation between mind and body. I consider the power of medical discourses in shaping how we think and feel about our health and well-being and our experience with illness. Eating Lolly is about female identity, the right to self-determination and the power of reclaiming story. It is a celebration of difference, of family, community and landscape and the impact of these factors on identity formation. This thesis contain no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library, being available for loan and photocopying. t8 lto lr+ Acknowledgements In its infancy, this project was encouraged by Dr Heather Kerr. I thank her for her insight and, most importantly, for her enthusiasm. I also thank her for her final reading and her kind comments. Thank you to Dr Eva Sallis for her sensitive and thoughtful readings, for supporting me throughout the years and believing I was capable. Thank you to Professor Thomas Shapcott, another keen, generous and expert reader. Thank you to the women who volunteered their stories in contribution to this research. Although there were just a handful of respondents from so many women who are struggling with eating issues, their responses offered rich, varied and complex wisdoms into life with bulimia nervosa. Thank you to The Eating Disorders Association of SA (formerly Anorexia Bulimia Nervosa Association) for their encouragement in the early days of this project and for the outstanding support they offer to the community. Thank you to my friends at The Dulwich Centre for their exceptional listening and for the rigorous discussions with me as I refined my thoughts. Thank you to my friend Eliza Schmerlaib for all the sharing over the years. Thank you to Gina Inverarity for her friendship and her skilled editing. Thank you to Adam Loveys for standing by me and for our two beautiful children, Ada and Tedric - both born as this PhD took shape. And lastly, thank you always to my parents for making me and making this possible Mumma arrived in Hillwater with her belly full of baby. Her father had found her a quiet place, surrounded by dark seas, old eucalypts, whispering grass, accessible only by ferry, morning, noon and evening-Cheap real estate, Margaret. Really a very good investment for your Grandma's inheritance. Her mother sat in the front of the car with her handbag on her lap, her father started unpacking the trailer and Mumma collapsed and cried until she was dizzy. Her father assured her this move was for the best. Privacy ís paramount during this inøuspicious time. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief and pondered the dirty smear. Mumma choked and bubbled on tears. Her father examined her for a moment and blood rose up his neck, saturating his face. For God's sake Margaret! Get up out of the dirt. You're a woman now and there's no-one to blame but yourself. He turned away and busied himself with unloading an old velvet armchair. Mumma fell silent. Her father was right. She was a woman and it was her own fault. Dust swirled. The trailer was empty. Mumma stood in a pocket of sunlight, shoulders stooped, head bowed, pigeon-toed. She heard her father sneeze three times from inside the house. She shuffled around the car to the passenger side window, put her palm to the glass but her mother continued to stare straight ahead. That's it. }ìer father blew his nose. You must make the necessary adjustments to a solitary life. Take your tonic and I will be back by and by to check on your progress. He got into the driver's seat and exchanged words with her mother. Mumma watched her pass a paper bag to him. He got back out of the car. Your Mother wants you to have these. 1 Mumma sat and sobbed on the doorstep for the rest of the day. The tide went out and came back in again. Wind pushed and pulled at trees and shivered over the water's surface. Men launched tinnies off the boat ramp and putted out to sea. A lost sheep bleated. Mumma watched and waited. She hoped to hear the drone of the Fairlane approaching, longed for her parents to come back for her. But no-one came. She was eighteen, six months pregnant and alone; really, truly alone for the first time in her life. A gull soared on a cuffent of air and shat by her foot. Mumma wondered if this was the beginning or the end. She reached for the brown paper bag. She already knew what was inside; a batch of scones. They were tied up in a yellow tea-towel. She already knew, because on her last night as a girl, in her family home, the smell of baking had woken her just after midnight. Rain came at dusk. The splats on stone surprised. Mumma remembered where she was and her throat tightened all over again. She opened the front door and went inside. A rat jumped from the kitchen sink and disappeared behind the oven. Mumma glanced over the forest of boxes stacked one on the other. She pulled back cardboard and squinted at the contents. Her precious things were jumbled with hand-me-downs; her porcelain ornaments wrapped in Grandma Collins'knitting bag, muslin nappies Aunt Nancy used with her boys were folded and placed between her mixing bowls, her old doll Miss Lucy was face down in the basinet from the church fête. There was flour in a tin canister, sugar in white ceramic, eggs wrapped in tissue and tied in a woolen hat. Books, clothes, bed linen, cutlery, crockery, potatoes, a portable black and white television set a patient had left her father in his will. Rain clouds rolled over the sea and blacked out the last of the light and Mumma worried about finding her gas lamp. In her mad scrabbling she found an old red blanket from home, bound herself tightly and curled into a corner of her bed. 2 The moving had disturbed the rats. They were active this night, busy rearranging themselves, scrabbling over Mumma's things, gnawing through floorboards, gouging wood with their teeth, scraping against the grain, squealing and squabbling, eating the house from the inside out, the outside in. Mumma sucked on her fingers and sobbed into her blanket. She squeezed her eyes shut, so tight her temples ached. She tried to think of happy things, of her bedroom back home with its billowing curtains and the white wicker pram full of toys, of the paddocks bouncing with bees and Spring lambs, of little Clive in his swimming trunks, of Cliff Richard, of sponge cake with cream, tinned pears set in jelly, lamingtons and cockles with pink icing. But the rats continued to wrestle and the fear overwhelmed. It took four days for Mumma to stop crying and feel herself again. She was able to stomach more than porridge and honeycomb and on this clear morning she cooked French toast and potato cakes. Her father had said he would call before lunch this Sunday and Mumma expected him at morning tea time with a box of food and some scones for morning tea. The idea of buttering him a snack made her stomach churn and she decided to avoid his visit by taking a walk along the empty beach.