Between the Boundaries of Turkish Delight, Butterbeer, and Waffles: Reading Food Metaphors in Children’s Literature

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze food metaphors in Children’s literature: a metaphor of punishment in Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a metaphor of pleasure in Rowling’s Harry Potter books and a metaphor of healing in Hovarth’s Everything on a Waffle. Food has been used to teach proper knowledge and lessons to children (readers) by adults (authors). Within those thoughts, children should be passive and obedient objects erasing their own voices. In fairy tales, one of the main themes is how to survive through harsh situation and severe starvation. Food and eating manners are suitable to deliver the moral messages to children. Edmund, tempted by White Witch’s Turkish Delight, doesn’t remember the polite manners when he eats, and becomes a traitor to get more Turkish Delight. His greedy desire toward Turkish Delight is punished by the hunger and the crisis to be a victim. Harry, always hungry and isolated in Dursley’s house, realizes the pleasure of food after eating and sharing fantastic sweets and food in Hogwarts. Food in Harry Potter books doesn’t connotate any morals or lessons that children might know. Primrose, who suffers from her parents’ absence, strongly believes that they are alive and come back someday. To fill the absence, she tries to fill up ‘the blank pages’ in mom’s note pad with recipes. Writing recipes can be a way of healing to fill up ‘the blank pages’ in her life.