Eating Oysters Isn't Just Eating Oysters If It's In A Book Or Movie

Who knew that eating meant more than just satisfying one’s hunger? I guess if you think about it that makes sense. Everyone knows what eating is and it’s not a particularly exciting event. So, why would an author use pages in his book on such a trivial activity? Because obviously there’s something more.

From what I’ve read and seen, a meal can be used to have everyone in a story in one place for when big news are delivered, or a particular plot twist that involves everyone, is delivered. So in those situations, it’s not about the food, but rather having a reason to have everyone together in one place at once. Also it can help to show character traits, like in the Bell Jar. When Esther is at the ladies' luncheon she spends a good about of time talking about the food and devouring it and in doing so one can notice how she doesn’t really interact with anyone else. It is so much about the food because there is a lack of dialogue with the other girls there. And of course this meal is what leads to the food poisoning later on. So this one meal both underscores Esther’s loneliness and lack of social activity and sets up a future conflict. 

Again, I don’t know why I hadn’t figured this out before. During most meal scenes in movies, people are having a conversation. As the audience you naturally pay attention more to what is being said than what is being done. The eating is secondary because it’s not essential. In the same sense, if there isn’t conversation happening during a meal scene, then you know that the action is important. That although they are eating, there is something bigger happening that must be spotted. 

I also found it very interesting when it talked about how in “Tom Jones” the eating scene in the inn was used in place of a sex scene because that couldn’t be openly shown back then. That is such a clever way to visually display an act that, well, could not be visually displayed. Having an everyday act represent something that society has deemed inappropriate to show is genius. A meal scene will never be censored if the characters are just eating. Because the director could always claim that it is an ordinary scene if he needs to. That being said, I will be more observant of scenes in which meals are happening. Something tells me that I have missed out on many things in the past because I wasn’t aware of the importance of what wasn’t happening. I must say though, using meal scenes to represent other things probably works best onscreen than on paper because being able to see how the characters eat is much more effective than reading about it. Just like anything that deals with the sense of smell is much more effective on paper because the descriptions can be more elaborate than a scene with an actor smelling something.