Skip to main content

The Relationship Between Fatima and Her Body

 Q: How would you characterize Fatima’s relationship to her body in The Body’s Defenses Against Itself?
A: From Fatima’s memories of her childhood, I got the sense that the judgemental nature caused by her shame doesn’t stop at other people, it also affects her own ego. The cycle of too much sweating resulting in shame and embarrassment due to her peers and thus more anxiety highlights how little control she has over her own body. 
From my perspective, in addition to being shamed about her anxiety induced and amplified hyperhidrosis, Fatima really seems like she’s dealing with more behind the scenes. Perhaps due to the fact that she couldn’t control her sweating, she wanted to control a different aspect of her body, her weight. From her longlasting grudge against Christinia, we know that her non-chubbiness is something she takes pride in. 
While recounting when her body started bleeding again at age 33, Fatima thinks “I try to believe the bleeding is just part of the purgative process, the toxins pouring out to make me new inside, like the sweat is supposed to do in hot yoga, like a release after a large meal.” (Thompson-Spires 62). The words she uses, purgative, release, etc. allude to her struggle with her weight. I believe Fatima is bulimic- which is why she talks about purging herself after meals, though subtly in the context of her endometriosis. Additionally, I think it’s relevant that she’s taught herself to ignore the pain, somehow convincing herself that her body bleeding is actually good for her and not incredibly alarming.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catcher in the Rye: Holden’s Neurodivergence

  From the start it’s pretty clear to every reader that Holden Caufield is a bit different than everyone else. But why? Why does he view everyone as phony? Why doesn’t he try in school despite being smart? Why does he want to horse around so much? The answer? Holden probably has ADHD, which in the 1940s was never diagnosed in children. The fact that he’s unable to understand himself through the lenses of diagnosis definitely doesn’t help with his utter disillusionment and depression. In some respects, I saw a lot of myself in him. When most people think of ADHD they only think of hyperactivity, but other major symptoms include stuff like anxiety, daydreaming as well as many comorbid disorders like depression. One major aspect of Holden’s story is his refusal to do hardly any schoolwork and his subsequent failure at school. Holden never tries unless it’s English writing because it’s the one subject he genuinely enjoys and sees the point in. For that same reason, he’s able to wri...
1 comment
Read more

Love’s Beginnings

In contrast with the blatant misogyny and objectification of women of women in the past couple books we’ve read, Zora Neale Hearston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is refreshingly relatable. The ultimate theme involving Janie’s quest for love is not necessarily one only permeating the experiences of women, it’s prevalent for all people. Moreover, coming from a broken home, Janie’s confusion in discovering for herself what love and marriage truly are is familiar to me. Without the primary example within the family, there’s no real fundamental idea which shapes that understanding. For Janie, her grandmother and mother were both raped, far beyond her idealistic hopes for love and the closest she’s gotten to visualizing a marriage before she witnesses the pear tree as an epitome is in the idea that her father wanted to marry her mother, which is why he kept chasing her.  Furthermore, Janie is caught between balancing romantic and platonic love. As Nanny warned, Killicks and even St...
4 comments
Read more

The Paradox of Madame Crommelynck

  Madame Crommelynck is certainly one of Black Swan Green’s most interesting characters. Her dialogue is metaphor and allusion laden and her impact on Jason is profound as such. However, there’s a sort of irony in how she presents herself.  One of the more notable conversations the two have is about truthfulness and beauty. Speaking to Jason about his poetry, Madame Crommelynck says “if an art is free of falseness, it is, a priori, beautiful.” She puts a huge emphasis on the fact that Jason needs to be truthful in his art. Their weekly visits are soon cut short for a shocking reason, Madame Crommelynck is arrested. Her sudden departure makes her character quite paradoxical, after all how could she hide so much if she believed in truth?  In another previous scene, she shows Jason a photograph of herself as a young girl. Jason doesn’t realize it’s her at first, Madame Crommelynck confirms it is saying “Yes. Whatever beauty is, I had it in those days. Or it had me.”...
2 comments
Read more