Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

“Eight Bites” was a difficult story to read. The narrator experiences so much pain mentally and emotionally that I found it hard to continue. I think this is due to the fact that even though the point of view is in first person, we can understand the conflicts and struggles of the other characters (Or, rather, the main character understands the conflicts of the other characters and doesn’t want to admit it). For example, the main character is the mother of Cal, her distant daughter who is described as “furious constantly” and “all accusation.” (158) Her daughter is angry at her for wanting the surgery, which she sees as an attack against her own body, and the main character cannot understand why the daughter can’t accept her body as flawed.

This conflict reflects back to the first scene of the story. At first, I couldn’t place why the introduction was so extremely sexual when the rest of the story didn’t seem to pertain to any issues about sex or relationships that would cause that anxiety, but now I understand it as having to do with ownership of the body. Sex is normally written as a process of two bodies becoming one, and though I realize conflating pregnancy and sex might seem gross, having a child inside of you is also about blurring the line between what is your body and what is your child’s body, and there is clearly that disconnect between the main character and Cal. This is exacerbated by the fact that the main character also marks her “point of no return” into weight gain as after she had Cal. On the one hand, it’s like Cal caused her body to betray her, and on the other hand, it’s not like Cal had any say in the matter.

In the end, it also seems like the main character betrays herself. After going through with the surgery, she finds the remnants of her left-behind fat in the basement. After beating up the part of her that she cannot accept, she leaves her down there, but there is the understanding that she will have to face her eventually, as on page 166 she says, “If you’re brave, you’ll turn your body over to this water that is practically an animal, and so much larger than yourself.” I think that the ending scene of the story gives shape to the unhealed grief and anger that has been passed from her to Cal, and will continue to be passed down through other families: “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.” (167) However, I also think that the last few lines gesture towards acceptance and that the main character can finally rest within her own body.