The Joy of Cooking

“The Joy of Cooking” by Elaine Magarrell

Question #2

 

Although this poem depicts a grotesque image, it effectively characterizes the sister and the brother in this poem. “I have prepared my sister’s tongue, scrubbed and skinned it.” The tongue characterizes the sister in the poem. Since the speaker is cleaning it and skinning it, suggests that the sister did not have a “clean” mouth. This implies that she regularly used explicit language when speaking. Moreover, the tongue is said to be best with horseradish and creole sauce, which suggests that the sister has a “spicy” tongue. She probably talked back and spoke her mind on a regular basis. The brother is characterized with the heart in the poem. He is characterized with not having a big heart and that it needs to be stuffed. For example, “needs an apple-onion stuffing to make it interesting at all.” This implies that brother is careless and does not have passion.