Eating Alone

Fiction | Poem | Adult

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Food

Descriptions of food, food preparation, and eating are frequent motifs of Li-Young Lee’s poetry. In “Eating Alone,” the act of eating is the poem’s titular subject. The pulling of the onions is the first act of food preparation the reader encounters in the first stanza, and it is performed with care. When the poem returns to the kitchen, the speaker fries onions with green sweet peas, alongside “shrimp braised in sesame / oil and garlic” (Lines 21-22). The speaker relays the process with an appreciative reverence, listing every ingredient in these simple dishes, honoring each as noteworthy. Thus, eating becomes an elevated act for the speaker. By cataloging the food items individually, Lee suggests that food-making is something special and perhaps even spiritual.

Steamed white rice, sesame oil and other traditional Asian ingredients often appear in Lee’s poems. The inclusion of such intimate practices provides an insight into the speaker’s cultural and culinary life. The figurative language of food also stimulates the reader’s senses.

The Hornet in the Pear

In “Eating Alone,” the hornet inside the pear symbolizes the cycle of life. The pear, fallen from the tree, is rotting on the ground. The decay of the fruit implies the eventual death of all things. This is made even more apparent because the speaker’s father is the one who finds it. At the time the speaker is recalling the memory, his father has since passed on. Therefore, the father’s discovery of the fruit suggests an acceptance of death that he passes on to his son. However, this acceptance also comes with the awareness that death can also bring life. Inside the pear, a hornet “spun crazily” (Line 14), feeding on its flesh. The hornet draws sustenance from the decaying fruit, thus enabling it to continue. The sweetness of the juice sends the hornet into a frenzy, signifying both the ecstasy of life and an enjoyment of death. Similar to the hornet, the speaker embraces death as a transformative process, rather than mourn the physical loss of his father. He remembers the hornet inside the pear as a gift from his father who showed him the beauty of the cycle of life.

Desire

Sensations of want and other expressions of desire are prevalent motifs of Lee’s poetry. In this poem, desire manifests both as the speaker’s hunger and the longing of solitude. The last line of the poem invokes both feelings: “what more could I, a young man, want” (Line 23). Rather than ending the sentence with a question mark, Lee chooses to end the line with a period; as such, the sentence operates as a declarative statement rather than a question. This suggests that even though the speaker is admittedly lonely, he does not desire company. He is content to satiate his desire to eat and enjoy the food he has prepared alone. Though the speaker’s desire is counter to the reader’s expectation, Lee reveals the complex nature of what the speaker wants.