Varieties of the Fantastic in Fiction

These two stories by Carmen Maria Machado were paired together for a very specific reason; they have the same message. While “Real Women Have Bodies” is more about women losing themselves and fading away into nothingness (with only their souls remaining), “Eight Bites” is about one woman in particular who’s unhappy with her body and the follow up choices she makes.

Society has influenced women and how we see ourselves so much that we feel we need to change, but we knew that already. Society says to women, “Do this. No, not like that.” It makes it nearly impossible for women to love themselves as they are. “Eight Bites” does an great job translating this. The narrator is still haunted by the ghost of her old self, always reminding her of what she used to look like. We see the narrator kicking and abusing her old self, only to be greeted by it on her dying day. She has made piece with it, regretting her decision and learning to love her old self. In “Real Women Have Bodies”, the women who fade away cling to the dresses the narrator’s lover’s mother sews. Even when the narrator shears the dresses to shreds, the spirits still refuse to leave.

After reading these stories, I listened to the song “Arcade” by Duncan Laurence. While the lyrics were originally intended to be about a broken relationship, I took it as a relationship with the self because these stories were fresh in my mind. Especially when it got to the line, “loving you is a losing game”, it flowed differently in my head. It reminded me that no matter what, women will always have difficulty loving themselves. And if we do, it could be too late, and we could already fading away. This can also relate back to almost every other story in Her Body and Other Parties because almost every relationship doesn’t work out; something happens to one of them. Either they die, turn to stone, or are left alone. Women in relationships with others or themselves always lose something, whether that be themself or their partner.