Lilly Tzanides

Critical Research Analysis Paper 

On “Eight Bites” by Carmen Maria Machado

“Eight Bites” by Carmen Maria Machado is a short story that illustrates an issue with women and how their bodies are viewed both on an individual level and through a societal lense.  The narrator of the story experiences the side effects that result from these toxic ideas about the female body; ideas that she is more familiar with than her own self.  She eventually takes action to change herself to suit her insecurities, and her impulsive decision is enabled by the environment she lives in.  The process that the narrator goes through as she struggles with her image can be analyzed using Freud’s ideas about repression, as well as the superego and its influencers.  

In the very beginning of the text, the narrator recalls her mothers eating habits.  While it is obvious that her habits were disorderly, her mothers obsession over eating only eight bites per meal is glossed over in order to highlight that she maintained a slim waist.  Her body, shaped by an eating disorder, is described as “just normal” (Machado, 3).  Above anything else, this is clear commentary on the way the female body is viewed.  This is done not just via her mothers own obsession about her size, but also by making it clear that the only acceptable or “normal” standard for a woman’s body is a skinny one.  This is also pointed out in a research article published by the University of Groningen, stating “The exposure to societal pressures related to body shape and weight (e.g., media promoting thin bodies; objectification of female bodies) and to aversive experiences (e.g., childhood trauma; body-related bullying) have been identified as risk factors for the development of a negative body image/body dissatisfaction”(Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, 2).  Inevitably (and obviously, given her mention of it), this fixation on the female body and how it should look is passed down to the narrator.  Needless to say, this heavily influences her negative body image when her body changes with age, resulting in something that does not meet society’s – nor her subsequent- standards of how skinny she should be.  She becomes increasingly insecure about her body, and feels pressure to follow in the footsteps of her three sisters, who have all gotten surgery to reduce the size of “[their] bodies that needed surgery” (Machado, 3).  All of these external influences contribute to the disgust that ultimately shapes her body image.  In the same paper published by the University of Groningen, it is explained that this habitual display of a negative image on others is likely to be projected onto oneself.  It states, “Previous research has found that people with a relatively strong habitual inclination to respond with disgust to any given stimulus or situation (i.e., high disgust propensity) are more likely to exhibit self-disgust” (Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, 2).  All of this is to say that the blame for the narrators self hate and negative body image does not fall on her, but rather a society that pushes a notion onto women that their bodies need to fit criteria in order to be acceptable.  

When her self image is analyzed through a Freudian filter, it is clear that the concept of the superego plays a role.  The superego, according to Freud, is developed through a collection of morals and ideals provided by society and parental influences.   He states, “The super-ego applies the strictest moral standard to the helpless ego which is at its mercy; in general it represents the claims of morality, and we realize all at once that our moral sense of guilt is the expression of the tension between the ego and the super-ego.”(Freud, 3).  In this case, the narrator’s superego not only reflects all the aforementioned notions about a woman’s body, but in turn directly influences her beliefs and thus how she conducts herself.  It is her superego that shapes her perception of herself, and it is also what ultimately drives her to get medically unnecessary bariatric surgery.  

The power of the superego is also demonstrated within the text.  Her daughter, Cal, for whom she blames for her weight gain, no longer talks to her.  Upon hearing about her mothers surgery, Cal makes it very clear to her mother that in hating her body she is also hating her daughter’s body, which is described to resemble that of her mothers.  That said, Cal makes no effort to change her own body.  It seems that in separating herself from her mother she has also separated herself from the ideas of what her body should be, thus preventing her own superego from having such a negative impact on her own body image.  That said, Cal is still distraught over the idea of her mother hating her body, and her own disdain indicates that her mother has already had enough of an impact on her superego to affect how she views herself (i.e. projecting her mothers hate onto herself).  When the narrator sits down to eat her final meal before the surgery, she states, “for the third time that week I worried about my moral compass, or lack thereof”(Machado, 6).  This suggests that she recognizes that she feels misguided and almost forced to proceed with the unnecessary procedure, but the ideals and morals tied so tightly to her superego continue to drive her actions.  In “Kant’s ‘I’ in ‘I Ought To’ and Freud’s Superego” by Béatrice Longuenesse, a text that reflects on this Freudian concept, the effect of the superego as mentioned previously is discussed, stating  “even though moral commands come to be discursively formulated in terms that are rationally comprehensible to the subject, their motivating force remains, throughout, premised on the emotional force they derive [unconsciously]…”(Béatrice Longuenesse, 18).  In essence, the narrator’s actions, influenced by her superego, are resulting from ideas rooted so deeply in her conscious that they seem rational, even when they are not (like feeling guilty about her body to the point of getting the surgery).  

This creates a conflict that is apparent immediately after the narrator has her surgery.  It was clear from the start that she did not enjoy the idea of changing herself, and it was evident that her surgery was something she felt she had to do rather than doing it on her own behalf/for herself.  Her surgery, however, was irreversible, and her decision was final.  Instead of feeling relief she felt a struggle to feel connected to herself.  This struggle is represented in the story as an entity in her basement, described as “a body with nothing it needs: no stomach or bones or mouth.” (Machado, 12).  This imagery is imperative in understanding that this disconnect between who she was and what she’s become results from her inability to take care of her image, as well as the neglect of her sense of self in exchange for a “better” body. 

 On page 13, the narrator kicks and screams at the entity, and makes an effort to forget about it afterwards.  Viewing this action through a Freudian lens once again, one can see how this act of pushing this discomfort away (or in this case beating it up) is representative of Freud’s idea of repression.  This is explained in Freud’s lectures, stating “…the end of this internal struggle was that the idea which had appeared before consciousness as the vehicle of this irreconcilable wish fell a victim to repression, was pushed out of consciousness with all its attached memories, and was forgotten.”(Freud, 2212).  Along with this explanation, it is also mentioned by Freud that though the mind will do its best to repress this discomfort, it will eventually manifest back into the conscious mind at some point.  At the very end of the short story, the entity is once again present at the death of the narrator, symbolizing a common female struggle, as indicated by the quote, “She will outlive my daughter, and my daughter’s daughter, and the earth will teem with her and her kind, their inscrutable forms and unknowable destinies.” (Machado, 16).  The narrator realizes at the very end her grave mistake in neglecting herself, though it is too late and the entity walks her towards her death, away from the body she leaves behind.  The shame she feels just then is rooted in the discomfort she repressed metaphorically in her basement.  

Using Freud to analyze this story, Machados commentary on society is clear. The problematic notions of what a woman’s body should be can and will influence her self image, and it is a problem all women will face as long as their bodies are viewed objectively.  

Sources:

-2017: Eight Bites

-1910: Freud’s Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis
https://bbhosted.cuny.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-50145737-dt-content-rid-393885163_1/xid-393885163_1

-1910: Super Ego Lecture XXXI

-2012: Kant’s ‘I’ in ‘I Ought To’ and Freud’s Superego

-2018: University of Groningen Research Article: Negative body image: Relationships with heightened disgust propensity, disgust sensitivity, and self-directed disgust

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.