Eat Me - Patience Agbabi

Eat Me - Patience Agbabi 

The Poem: 

When I hit thirty, he bought me a cake,

three layers of icing, home-made

a candle for each stone in weight

The icing was white but the letters were pink,

they said, EAT ME. And I ate, did

what I was told. Didn’t even taste it.

Then he asked me to get up and walk

round the bed so he could watch my broad

belly wobble, hips judder like a juggernaut.

‘The bigger the better’ he’d say, I like

big girls, soft girls, girls I can burrow inside

with multiple chins, masses of cellulite.

I was his Jacuzzi. But he was my cook,

my only pleasure was the rush of fast food,

his please, to watch me swell like forbidden fruit.

His breadfruit. His desert island after shipwreck.

Or a beached whale on a king-size bed

craving a wave. I was a tidal wave of flesh

too fat to leave, too fat to buy a pint of full-fat milk,

too fat to use fat as an emotional shield,

too fat to be called chubby, cuddly, big-built

The day I hit thirty-nine, I allowed him to stroke

my globe of a cheek. His flesh, my flesh flowed.

He said, open wide, poured olive oil down my throat.

Soon you’ll be forty… he whispered, and how

could I not roll over on top. I rolled and he drowned

in my flesh. I drowned his dying sentence out.

I left him there for six hours that felt like a week.

His mouth slightly open, his eyes bulging with greed.

There was nothing else left in the house to eat.

Analysis 

Title

The title of 'Eat Me' connotes childlike imagery due to the way that it comes from the children's tale 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll.The use of the imperative suggests a sense of command and aggression, as the use of the imperative  and the duo-syllabic title is very abrupt and 'bossy'.

Initial Meaning 

On first appearance Agbabi's poem can be about a woman trapped in an abusive relationship with a feeder. At a second glance it can also be about a battle with inner demons and the inner voice. 

Structure 

Agbabi uses a consistent structure of tersets throughout her poem. This can show the consistency of the abuse and the consistent pressure on the narrator to conform to standards set by society. The rigid structure can also be used to show just how trapped the narrator feels in the relationship she has with the male, and also how trapped she is in the face of society's expectations and her own self esteem. 

Form

Agbabi's use of a poem for Eat Me has been done in order to make the message more personal. She is making a statement to society in her poem, and encouraging the idea of female empowerment against society's expectations and the patriarchal traditions in society (the idea that women need to conform to what men desire from them). 

Narrative

The narrator is an unnamed female narrator, with heteroglossia used in the 4th, 8th, and 9th stanza with the male narrative. This is effective as it allows the reader to see into the mind of both narrators, as well as invoking a feeling of hatred toward the dominating male narrative. The use of the heteroglossia also shows that, even in the personal dramatic monologue, the male intrudes her personal space and her deepest thoughts- this can also be used to convey feelings of hatred towards the male.

The consistent use of assonance, alliteration and repetition, as well  as innuendo combined together in Eat Me allows the narrator to convey a sensual feeling throughout the poem from the narrator, which mirrors the excess that is described in the poem. It is also ironic as there is no indication of any intimacy between the narrator and her partner.

Rhyme

The half rhyme of 'cake' and 'weight' implies feelings of uncertainty and ambiguity as even though they are not spelled the same when said aloud they sound almost the same. This carries the idea that even in her thoughts the female narrator is unsure about herself and is lacking a sense of identity, which can be linked to the way females are often pressured by society to the point where they lose their individuality, instead becoming a slave to the expectations of society.

The assonance of the 'o' sound in the 8th terset ('poured olive oil down my throat') creates the sound of someone choking. This can be representative of the way the narrator is feeling choked by the presence of the abusive male in her life. It can also show the impact society's expectations can have on women, especially in terms of body image. 

The fact that the rhyme scheme is a strict 'A-B-A' rhyme or half rhyme structure conveys the sense of claustrophobia and entrapment faced by women in the eyes of society and the social expectations for women. This also emphasizes the idea that women feel trapped and isolated when in an abusive relationship and it shows a fear of breaking away from the normality. 

Tone

The tone shifts throughout Eat Me from a negative, melancholic/mournful tone in the first few stanzas, as the narrator discusses what the male character does to her, to a stronger, more empowered tone in the last few stanzas as the narrator breaks free of the male character's manipulative controlling grasp.

The use of submissive language in the first few stanzas, such as 'I did as I was told' not only evokes an image of a child being ordered around by a parent, but it also evokes feelings of pathos and sympathy towards the female narrator and feelings of hatred and disgust towards the male. 

The more dominant tone at the end of the poem highlights the female's empowerment and her breaking free of the social expectations and the repression from her partner. This is shift in the power dynamic is highlighted by the use of sarcasm in 'how could I not roll over him' and the increased use of the personal pronoun 'I'.

Prevalent Themes

Female empowerment 

Dominance
Power struggles 
Gender roles 

Imagery 

The colour imagery in the "white" icing with the "pink"lettering is used to show how women were expected to stay innocent and pure. The "white" is symbolic for innocence and purity, and the use of it in 'Eat Me' is ironic as the narrator is neither innocent nor pure, and this is shown through the use of sexual innuendo. As "pink" is a traditionally feminine colour it can be said that this is symbolic for the traditional expectations of women in society. 

The use of water imagery suggests a 'flowing' feeling of the ongoing abuse and the endless mental torment which results from the abuse. The reference to the "tidal wave of flesh" also implies that the female narrator feels helpless as she has been swept away by the wave of social expectations and the pressures coming from the social expectations. 

The use of imagery from the semantic field of food also connotes the idea that society is dwelling on what we eat and the idea that 'you are what you eat'. The use of fricatives and anaphora in "too fat to..." in the 7th stanza shows this, as well as society's obsession with body image and weight. From this a lot of size-based imagery is seen as well, such as in 'globe' of a cheek.

The use of imagery to show isolation, such as 'shipwreck' and 'desert' reveals the loneliness the narrator feels in this relationship. The contrasting of this imagery with the use of size imagery, particularly 'globe' could add some scale to the feeling of loneliness the narrator has. 

Language

The change in the pronouns from being predominantly "he" at the start of the poem to being "I" clearly indicates the shift in the power dynamic from the male influence to the female narrator. This is also shown in phrases such as "I left him" and "I allowed him", as it shows the female narrator being the controlling influence in the power dynamic. The change in the use of pronouns can also suggest that she is trying to find her own voice and to find herself in modern society.

The use of phrases such as "my only pleasure was the rush of fast food" and "his to watch me swell like forbidden fruit" also suggests that the narrator and her partner are in a loveless relationship as they seek no pleasure in each other, only in the food-based aspects of their relationship. The biblical allusion in "forbidden fruit" can also be a comment on how as a society we have become a more consumer-based society and we are now a society influenced more by the sins of greed and gluttony.

The use of imperatives throughout the poems shows the aggression the narrator feels towards the partner as a result of the aggression she is put through by her partner, and also the aggression she feels towards the rest of society as well because of the fact that society has these high expectations of women that they are supposed to conform to.

The onomatopoeia in phrases such as "belly wobble" connotes a sense of childishness and a childlike mentality. This links to the way that the narrator feels as though she is being ordered around by her partner as though she is a child.

Which poems from the 'Poems of the Decade' anthology can you compare 'Eat Me' with?

The Map Woman