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Abstract
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The exploration of stigma and the self in Dietland, Butter, and Hunger is essential for understanding the psychological violence embedded in anti-fat discourse and its profound impact on identity formation. This research delves into how Sarai Walker, Erin Jade Lange, and Roxane Gay dramatize the internalization of societal contempt, drawing on Erving Goffman’s theory of stigma and contemporary feminist body studies. Understanding these dynamics is critical for uncovering how literature not only reflects but actively contests the pathologization of fat bodies in medical, media, and educational institutions (Goffman 15). As Goffman emphasizes, stigma operates through “the gap between what a person ought to be and what they are perceived to be”—a discrepancy that shapes selfhood long before it is named (Goffman 5). Contemporary scholarship confirms that weight-based stigma begins in early childhood and persists across the lifespan, with measurable effects on mental and physical health (Puhl and Suh 114).
In these texts, the theme of internalized shame emerges as a central mechanism of social control, as characters are conditioned to view their bodies as moral failures requiring correction. Plum Kettle’s belief that “I would finally be seen once I was small enough” (Dietland 22) exemplifies what Fikkan and Rothblum term “embodied self-estrangement”—a state in which the self is experienced as hostile territory (Fikkan and Rothblum 208). This psychological fragmentation reflects Goffman’s concept of “spoiled identity,” where the stigmatized individual internalizes the devaluation imposed by others (Goffman 30). Research in social psychology demonstrates that internalized weight bias correlates strongly with depression, anxiety, and disordered eating—even when controlling for BMI (Pearl et al. 5). Thus, the protagonists’ struggles are not aesthetic but existential: their battle is not against fatness, but against the narrative that fatness negates personhood.
The dynamics
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