As a woman of many (and we’re using the term “many” loosely) hobbies, I have found that reading and scrolling through social media to be two of my personal favorites. I love being immersed in a story of love or stories of fantasy and adventure, as well as I enjoy shutting off my brain while mindlessly swiping away through the many social platforms that I created accounts for. These hobbies are my most prized habits for relieving my real world stress and enjoying the emotional rides of the imaginative universe.
As Valentine’s Day passed by this year, my gravitation towards romance books increased and my desire to shut off the reminder that I will be eating ice cream and chocolate covered strawberries alone grew stronger. As the novels crowding my bookshelf had been successfully cracked open and a comfortable spot in my bed with exemplary cell service had been found, I found ease in the world once more. That was, until, I came across a video in my relentless scrolling that spoke of how relatable the topic of cannibalism describes how all consuming love is. From one video, I received several more soon to follow speaking of the same thing, and it is a topic that holds such a strong interest to not only me, but millions. In this article, I wanted to share with you what cannibalism means when symbolic of love and how it prevails to this day in modern media.
Cannibalism as a metaphor for love is a topic that has recently been plaguing my mind, however, it is a concept that has been around for ages. It is used to describe a love that is obsessive and with craze, a love where one has a carnal desire to completely consume the otherness of their partner to fulfill a desire of closeness that normal physical exchanges cannot do. It is a yearning feeling to be completely whole with someone, as for them, love is not just a feeling of the heart fluttering for another, but an obese ache that rocks through a person’s whole body.
The desire to unite body and spirit with your partner through cannibalism, as it has been discovered in my little pea brain, is not a new idea; as a matter of fact, it has been around for centuries. Many people from a plethora of network services discuss this carnal desire by both creating their own work with high regards to the topic and by sharing previously made quotes and poems from men and women that have preceded us by several generations. An early example of documented poems that relates to this idea was one found from poet Stephen Crane dating back to the late 1800s. Titled In the Desert, the poem goes to tell a story of a creature who is eating his own heart and enjoying it because it is his own.Although Crane leaves his poem open for interpretation of its use of cannibalization, it can be used to demonstrate the idea of loving your partner so much that in order to feel closer to them than what skin on skin could do, you consume them.
The idea of cannibalism as a metaphor of love has moved forward through literature in diverse ways; some versions take form in biblical inspired texts and some leaning towards different areas of fantasy. Through its progression to the present day in the 21st century, it can be seen in almost every media form. Popular music artists such as Mitski and Ethel Cain relate their lyrics to the idea of cannibalism in examples such as in Mitski’s song, Abbey “I am hungry, I have been hungry, I was born hungry, What do I need?” and Cain’s song Dog Days “Cut me up and take me like the bread and blood of church” from Cain.
The lyrics from Mitski explain a lifetime of yearning through the physical sensation of hunger and Cain’s lyrics depicting the theme of cannibalistic love through the perspective of church goers consuming the cracker and juice as if it were the bread and blood of Christ. There are also examples of cannibalism in television and film, two popular examples being Yellowjacket and Bones and All, making it apparent that this expression of morbid devotion carries forward in the emotions of common day people just as closely as it was held to people in the past.
What it means to love and feel love can be conveyed differently among every human individual who inhabits this planet. Whether it is expressed through the giving of flowers and chocolates, or through the exchange of parts of one’s physical being, it can always be summed up to one thing: passion. Love symbolized through cannibalism is a trend that has been around in art for many years. It encaptures the idea that love for some is not just a meager experience, but an all consuming feeling. It is a style of art that has many different areas of depiction, whether it be for the better or the worst, but it continues to stride on through many years of trends and changes.
To me, to feel love to the bone is an understanding that I am well acquainted with. To see media portraying a deep connection in such a moldable way as through metaphorical cannibalism is something that I not only find to be of complete interest, but also something worthy of sharing. I hope that after stumbling across this article, you find it to be a topic as near and dear as I do, and you take with it what it can mean to completely be drowned in love.