Originally Posted by
FirecrackerX
Have you ever read a book where someone ate a flower? Just like this. If you have, I'd be very grateful if you could let me the title over here.
I'm a huge symbolim fan and recently I've found myself quite amazed about flower-eaters in literature. I mean, they do not eat flowers on a regular basis, it's just that in a concrete scene he/she eats a flower in a strange, unthinking way, as if there was some hidden, powerful rage. It totally creeps me out, to read such an act. Pretty boy/girl with beautiful, soft flower in hand that's suddenly, roughly bitten by bare teeth... Aarrgh *shivers*. But it's so damn beautiful, in a terrorific kind of way xDDD.
So far I've found three 'flower-eaters': In Katherine Mansfield's 'Carnation', in D.H. Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers' and in spanish novel by Rosa Montero 'Historia del Rey Transparente'. In all the three cases the act of devouring a flower stands as a symbol for love frustration/self-sexual denial. So, I'm looking for 'flower-eaters' in literature, Some help, pretty please?
And so you can understand my fascination... Fragment from 'Sons and Lovers', where the protagonist decides to break off with his first love because her mother does not like the girl (and she's a hell of a mother). Notice the silent rage, the animalistic quality of the action, due to a powerful inner frustration:
'On Sunday I break off', he said, smelling the pink. He put the flower in his mouth. Unthinking, he bared his teeth, closed them on the blossom slowly, and had a mouthful of petals. These he spat into the fire, kissed his mother, and went to bed.