Conditions and Strategies of Literary Representations of Bulimia

Abstract

This paper examines the wider context of the relationship of literature to the social phenomenon of food disorders. The body is seen as a cultural text, as well as the center of control (Bordo, 1993). The key issue concerns the capacities and possibilities of giving a plausible representation of bulimia based on the no­vel "Polupani lončići. Potresna ispovijed o borbi s bulimijom" ("Olly Olly Oxen Free. A touching testimony about the struggle with bulimia", 2003) by Croatian writer Jasna Šurina. It deals with a disorder that the ill themselves often do not want to ac­knowledge, and live a hidden, chaotic life with the aim of taking control over their bodies. Such a life can be represented only as a fragmented, confusing, and nonlinear story, a chaos narrative that, in this case, develops into a restitution narrative (Frank, 1979). Coherent, homogenous or linear narrative usually seems to be unfeasible. The analysis shows that the narrator Jasna ma­nages to find her voice and defy stigmatization by representing her state and experience, no matter how chaotic her representa­tion is. Her identity can be formed and somewhat convincingly represented only at the intersection of her regaining and losing control, at the junction of indifference and vulnerability, in the interplay between dependence and independence.