An Analysis Of Symbolism In Naked Lunch, By Michael Hollinger

In the drama Naked Lunch by Michael Hollinger, Lucy and Vernon are having dinner together to reconcile after breaking up. However, their dinner is very unusual with Vernon forcing Lucy to eat steak after saying she was a vegetarian after they broke up. Vernon forcing Lucy to eat the steak and Lucy eventually losing her will to fight back with Vernon can imply that Vernon used to abuse Lucy, and will continue to abuse Lucy. Vernon is just like the alligator that he talks about in the beginning of the drama, a predator that cannot be tamed, and Lucy is the poodle that is a prey compared to the alligator and can be trained. Vernon is basically trying to train Lucy, a girl who is a pushover and is willing to go through change, to become the girl that Vernon expects her to be and he achieves this through abuse. Lucy might’ve wanted to go through the change of becoming a vegetarian because of Vernon. The meat could have symbolized Vernon to Lucy in one way or another so she became a vegetarian. The meat symbolized Vernon in a way since it is shown Vernon is an avid meat lover, he cooked steak to be special and expected Lucy to …show more content…
“... figure I’ll open a bottle of wine, apologize… maybe we’ll get naked, be like old times” (1059). This shows that a big reason why Vernon even invited Lucy was to have sex with her, he didn’t want her to love him or care for him, he just wanted the pleasure of getting together with someone and having sex with them. He views Lucy as just a piece of meat that he loves so much to force Lucy to eat it. This can be why Lucy quit eating meat not just to show she’s going to change but also since she knew or found out that Vernon just viewed her as that, a piece of meat that he wants, so she connected it to dark pasts with Vernon and ended up becoming a vegetarian for that