“어른들의 사랑은 함께 생선을 먹는 것일까?”: 토니 모리슨의 『가장 푸른 눈』에 나타난 음식, 권력, 사랑의 역학

Abstract

This article explores the dual role of food in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, showing how ordinary acts of eating illuminate the intersections of power, desire, and the search for connection. The novel’s recurring images of everyday food expose not only physical hunger but also racial hierarchy, aesthetic norms, and emotional deprivation shaped by social inequality. Scenes in which characters give, withhold, or consume food reveal eating as a mechanism of social authority: offering food confers moral and social power, while receiving it often produces shame or exclusion. In this way, everyday nourishment becomes tied to structures of control. At the same time, the novel presents food as a sensory medium through which contact with the other becomes possible. Textures, tastes, and shared meals allow bodies to momentarily cross social boundaries, generating intimacy, memory, and communal possibility. These moments emphasize that the meaning of food lies not simply in what is eaten but in how eating fosters or disrupts human connection. Ultimately, the novel suggests that food can both reproduce inequality and open a space for healing, embodied empathy, and more inclusive forms of communal eating.