Commensality and culture: a semiotic reading of Igbo tribal life in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Sreelakshmi K P
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Abstract

Food in literary production signifies the cultural and cross-cultural relations from which it is produced. The emergence of Literary Food Studies engages food as a signifier to magnify human relations and emotions. Food is a mosaic system of signs symbolising diasporic, class, caste, racial, and gender relations. The paper focuses on commensality, one of the mushrooming trends in literary food studies. Commensality is the act of eating together that helps to build relationships and create conviviality, the social pleasure among people. It helps to reinforce the identity and sense of belongingness among the community members. Drawing on the theoretical readings from Mary Douglas and Arjun Appadurai’s semiotics of food, the paper explores the possibilities of commensality in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The paper tries to argue that, commensality and its food practices along with representing togetherness could also symbolise the complex cultural functioning of the Igbo tribal community. The ingredients of the commensality, the culinary tools, and the order of eating convey cultural meanings. It throws light into the hierarchy and various power relations existing in the community.
共生与文化:对奇努阿-阿契贝《分崩离析》中伊格博部落生活的符号学解读
文学作品中的食物象征着产生食物的文化和跨文化关系。文学食物研究的出现将食物作为一种符号来放大人与人之间的关系和情感。食物是一个马赛克符号系统,象征着散居、阶级、种姓、种族和性别关系。本文的重点是 "共食",这是文学食物研究中雨后春笋般出现的趋势之一。共餐是一种共同进餐的行为,有助于建立人际关系,创造愉悦的社交氛围。它有助于强化社区成员的身份认同和归属感。本文从玛丽-道格拉斯(Mary Douglas)和阿俊-阿帕杜赖(Arjun Appadurai)的食物符号学理论出发,探讨了奇努瓦-阿契贝(Chinua Achebe)的《分崩离析》(Things Fall Apart)中 "共食 "的可能性。本文试图论证,"共生 "及其食物习俗在代表团结的同时,也象征着伊格博部落社区复杂的文化功能。共食的成分、烹饪工具和进食顺序都传达了文化含义。它揭示了社区中存在的等级制度和各种权力关系。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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