Reflection

Phenomenological source and reflection: HUNGER “FEED the children.” “Save little Haruk from the fate of his older brother.” Children with extended bellies stare at us with huge eyes from the television screen and prey on our conscience. The advertisement for Children International continues... and my thoughts turn to food as my stomach rumbles. What is it like to experience hunger? Not just the “I missed breakfast” hunger but rather the hunger of days, months, years. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens paints a powerful picture of the hungry and downtrodden in 18th century France but which is timeless in the manner in which hunger is portrayed. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.[1] Dickens’ makes masterful use of language “grave voices” and “ploughed into every furrow of age ...coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger.” The word sigh is defined as: to take in and let out a long, deep, audible breath, esp. in expressing sorrow, relief, fatigue, longing, etc. With all that “sigh” implies, we can feel the fatigue, the longing and the effort of expression conveyed by utilizing that verb to pitch the idea of Hunger. Having all experienced at least some level of hunger, we can quickly envision, in fact feel the effort it would take to even speak after extended periods of going without. Of Time: Time is marked in the passage by the repetition of the word Hunger at the beginning of phrases and sentences. Hunger keeps a steady beat, marching on relentlessly. The repetition serves to heighten the sense of hunger as it tightens its grasp over a period of time, becoming ever present. Of Space: Hunger. The initial hunger, the ravenous hunger, the continuous hunger, the unforgiving hunger. From faintness wrought from missing a meal or two to weight loss due to the continuous lack of provisions, hunger consumes. Dickens descriptions of “small loaf of scanty bread” and “reluctant drops of oil” present how precious each meagre store of food is when hunger is what you know and experience daily. Your stomach growls and rumbles. Your head aches. You feel faint. You feel tired and weak. Moving and even speaking becomes an effort. Hunger occupies the body. Hunger occupies physical space; “It was prevalent everywhere.” There was hunger in the houses, around the clothesline, on the filthy street and at the butcher’s and baker’s premises. It follows you wherever you are, being uppermost in your mind, gnawing at you no matter your surroundings. It knows no boundaries and will not be confined by fences nor borders. Hunger occupies the mind. Of Relationships: Hunger colours relationships. The best and the worst virtues of humanity come forth. A parent goes without so that his child may be fed yet neighbours fight off neighbours for food. Strife and stress within families rise as does the continuous worry over where the next meal is coming from. Otherwise good natured people become cantankerous as they are worn down. Hunger occupies mind, body and soul. [1] Dickens, C. (1859). A Tale of Two Cities.