28 pages • 56 minutes read
Her Body and Other Parties
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Story 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story 6 Summary: “Eight Bites”
A woman contends with her decision to have the equivalent of gastric bypass surgery. Her estranged daughter insists that it is dangerous, but the woman’s three sisters have had the surgery and claim it has changed their lives. The woman remembers her mother’s advice to only ever eat eight bites and decides to have the surgery. After her surgery, she notices a strange presence in her house. Once she confronts the presence, she realizes it is the corpse of her old body fat. She often abuses the body fat, kicking and screaming at it. However, over time, the two come to live in harmony. One day, the woman dies and is reunited with her fat. She realizes how abusive she was to her old body, saying, “I’m sorry […] I didn’t know” (168).
Story 6 Analysis: “Eight Bites”
“Eight Bites” serves as commentary on toxic weight loss culture and its promotion of self-hate. It illustrates how women are manipulated into supporting the very oppressive systems that hold them down through the social capital associated with idealized body image. Through the protagonist’s relationship with her daughter and her own mother, who told her that eight bites is all a woman needs to eat, Machado illustrates the intergenerational toll of conforming to impossible beauty standards as well as how they are perpetuated over time.
The surgery the main character undergoes is reminiscent of popular gastric bypass surgeries in which the stomach is divided into two smaller sections and the small intestine is rearranged. After this surgery, overeating is life-threatening. Using vivid description, Machado walks the reader through the real-world implications of such a surgery. The main character’s hatred of her old body and her simultaneous inability to separate herself from it (after the surgery, the old body continues to inhabit her house) illustrates an unhealthy separation between mind and body. The motifs of queer desire and isolation are touched upon through the main character’s relationship with her daughter, who is queer. Throughout the story, the main character ruminates on her estrangement from her daughter prior to the surgery, implying a connection between social isolation and poor self-esteem.
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