Abstract
In my discussion of the "good girls," I consider how each character adopts food refusal as a means of metaphorically rejecting the status of her body as a commodity for male consumption-particularly in terms of the marital contract and sexual relations. Jane, Caroline, and Shirley all suppress their own appetites-signifying their refusal to sustain themselves on a diet of the loveless marriage- while also controlling male food intake-signifying their refusal to be "consumed" by male sexual desire. What ultimately identifies these rebellious females as "good girls" is the fact that when they do receive the love they have craved, they merely taste rather than feast upon it, effectively displaying the proper amount of sexual restraint for a respectable Victorian woman. In my discussion of the "bad girls," I begin by examining the character of Catherine Earnshaw, who operates as a transitional character between the good and bad through her attempt to conform to social norms with her marriage to Edgar and her struggle to break free of those constraints through indulging in her love for Heathcliff and escaping her own bodily prison in death. Like the "good girls," Cathy refuses food as a means of rejecting the terms of her marital contract with Edgar, and she also carries her rebellion a step further by returning in spirit to haunt and consume Heathcliff after her death. Her ability to overpower Heathcliff functions as a form of cannibalism that attacks and consumes the patriarchy. Cathy's metaphorical consumption of Heathcliff provides an effective transition to a discussion of Bertha Mason, Carmilla, and Lucy Westenra, whose vampirism both illustrates an overindulgence in the sexual appetite and enacts a literal consumption of males that undermines the patriarchy.