Hotel du Lac – Space and Social Pressure - Anorexia


Tall, thin, beautiful anorexic. Image by Rega photography
The female characters' traits in Anita Brookner's novel, Hotel du Lac, allow the reader to understand how society forces women into stereotypical behaviour.

Edith Hope, along with the other female guests of Hotel du Lac, exemplifies not only gendered stereotypes but also the fact that despite societal reforms women continue to be marginalised.



Tall, Thin, Beautiful Anorexic

Edith’s character traits and those of her fellow female guests clearly reveal the effects of environmental constraints. Hidden behind make-up and sophisticated composure, Monica, “the tall thin beauty” (66) “has what is politely referred to as an eating problem” (80). According to Bertram Cohler and Henry Grunebaum, in The Psychology of Mothers, Grandmother, and Daughters: Personality and Childcare in Three Generation Families, 1981, “a [young] woman who shows . . . hunger disturbance . . . is likely to have had a mother who could not differentiate between her own needs and those of her daughter and who was unable to encourage her daughter to become a separate and independent daughter” (127).

Just like Edith Hope, Monica may have had a dysfunctional mother, but her marriage to a man “she hates and fears” (HL 81), and who “dispatche[s] [her] . . . with instructions to get herself in working order” (HL 80), only accentuates her despair and deep psychological problem. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are known to be confirmed negativity conditions. Similar to Monica, due to chronic lack of self-esteem and self-worth the sufferer of anorexia feels she cannot contend with the demands of her environment and thus resorts to abusing herself through limiting her food intake.

Predictably, in societies requiring women to be faithful and obedient wives, dedicated mothers, diligent homemakers, and successful professionally, the majority of those suffering from eating disorders are female. Unable to develop a socially approved ‘ideal self’ and overwhelmed with feelings of worthlessness, “the anorexic is,” Gillian Rose informs us in Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge, 1993, “always convinced she is taking up too much space” (145).


Anorexia – A Cloud of Self-Hate

Hotel du Lac’s ‘brief’ visitor: tall, thin, beautiful Monica, who “will be . . . told to vacate the premises,” and lose her territory if she cannot provide “an heir” (80), reveals her insubstantiality and irresoluteness when she claims that she “never ha[s] any plans” (144). To use Gillian Rose’s words, “In an effort to be desirable and evade entrapment in an oppressive space” (Rose 146), Monica, the anorexic, tries to acquire control by regulating her food intake. However, Monica’s inability to achieve male approval leaves her with a sense of doom and hopelessness. The beautiful waif, demoralised and cornered in a maze of negative emotions of self-hate, denies her body essential nutrients by resorting to gorging and regurgitation - another set of behaviours that are equally restrictive and entrapping.

Part of the series: The Spatial Impact of Social Pressure in Hotel du Lac. Next in this series: Motherhood. Previous: Marriage.

Sources:

Brookner, Anita. Hotel du Lac, Penguin, Harmondsworth, London: 1993.

Cohler Bertram and Grunebaum Henry. The Psychology of Mothers, Grandmother, and Daughters: Personality and Childcare in Three Generation Families. John Wiley & Sons, New York:1981.

Rose, Gillian. Feminism and Geography The Limits of Geographical Knowledge. Pollity Press, Cambridge UK: 1993.

Copyright Lesley Lanir. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
First published on Suite101, Mar 3, 2011, by Lesley Lanir


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