In chapter two of How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C Foster, Nice to Eat With You: Acts of Communion, Foster explores the different underlying events and symbolic bonding/community forming (i.e. communion) that occurs during a meal in a novel. One of the most obscure analyses of a feast the author puts forward is looking at the event as if it was a sex scene. This can work especially well for novels meant for youth or when an intimate bond is needed but a sexual relationship is inappropriate.

I had never really looked at eating together in a novel as a G-rated sex scene, however the analogy fits perfectly as eating with people can be a very personal and intimate experience. Everyone has to eat, it is one of the most basic needs of any living thing, therefore when people eat together it is in some ways a primal and animalistic act much like sex. It is not uncommon for people to slightly moan and breathe heavy while eating, and if the food is especially good then all conversation may stop completely because everyone is too engulfed in the meal; as if it is too powerful of a feeling that they can not control their actions.     

The other most prevalent evaluation, in my opinion, is to look at a meal, especially dinner, as a ritual. This applies very well when the topic of death is at the table. Whether it is the potting to kill another character that isn’t present, the food or drink is poisoned, or a character is going to be murdered at the table during the meal. Any time death is involved at the table in a plot, it is a ritual killing and or sacrifice. I personally found it easiest to identify this idea when it is related to the Italian Mafia. I would say ninety percent of the time that the mob is involved in a plot there ends up being some plan to kill another high ranking gang member that includes inviting them to a fancy dinner and then assassinating said gang member towards the end of the meal.

Now if this is actually in any way accurate to real life mob tactics is beyond me, never the less it has been engrained into the public’s mind as the traditional and most respectful way that the Italian Mafia families go about killing another person. In other words, it is their ritual way of taking a man’s life. In fact it fits the profile of a ritual killing very well. There is a special sacrifice: a high-ranking mobster. They are to be respectful of the sacrifice: what better way to show respect than to wine and dine the person before their demise. Lastly the death must be swift, clean, and follow a method (however it is not necessarily painless): traditionally the mobster is to shoot the target once in the head and leave the gun at the scene.

This book continues to fascinate me with how deeply and abstractly a novel can be analyzed.