7. Conclusion

We have understood poison as a literary tool to represent several things: symbolically, comically, and fatally. Each post shows a varying use of poison, interlinked through its purpose of quite simply changing the body. As seen with Alice’s body disfigurement in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when eating and drinking the objects left behind; or Ron’s horrific ordeal in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Placing poison within food is a symbol itself: food is an object on which we survive, therefore it becomes an invasion of not just the trust we place in our food, but our safety. Each text presents the unaware victim, the risk and vulnerability of eating or drinking something that is meant to be harmless, and each case explores the consequences. The argument of this blog shows poison as not only a murder weapon, but a symbolism of constraint, a need for the murderer to be heard or seen; each text gives that to the murderer without realising. 

Works Cited 

Caroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London, Macmillan. 2015. Print.

Rowling, J K. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Arthur A Levine Books, New York. 2005. Web. <http://publish.uwo.ca/~hamendt/WD%20final%20Project/litertaure/Half%20Blood%20Prince.pdf> Accessed March 2017.

5. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J K Rowling

(1) Book Cover

The most iconic example of twenty-first century children's fiction, Harry Potter frequently explores the manipulation of bodies - transfiguration, magical medicine, and of course, dangerous potions. As with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the prospect of non-fatal poisoning is explored. These poisons are meant to distort the body or corrupt the thoughts. In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Ron is mistakenly poisoned twice: first with a love potion, and then, more sinisterly, by poisoned mead. Here, then, are two different types of poison - one of the mind, the other of the body. 

Ron, unaware, greedily eats a box of chocolates sent as a gift to Harry. These chocolates were laced with love potion, causing Ron to pine for the sender, Romilda. This use of a 'poison' is comedic, used to justly punish Ron for his theft:

‘“They didn’t fall off your bed, you prat, don’t you understand? They were mine, I chucked them out of my trunk when I was looking for the map, they’re the Chocolate Cauldrons Romilda gave me before Christmas, and they’re all spiked with love potion!"' (393)

Harry brings Ron ingloriously to the office of the Potions master, Horace Slughorn, to have an antidote administered. After deceiving Ron into taking it, the three decide to celebrate with Slughorn's mead:

“I’ve got one last bottle of this oak-matured mead . . . hmm . . . meant to give that to Dumbledore for Christmas . . . ah, well . . .” He shrugged. “He can’t miss what he’s never had! Why don’t we open it now and celebrate Mr. Weasley’s birthday?” (397-398)

The jovial atmosphere of this scene is shattered by the advent of a dangerous poison in the mead, drunk by Ron before the toast. This contrasts the previous example of greed from Ron - now his life is in genuine danger. The scene returns to the more traditional usage of poison, as presented in previous works in this blog - as a murderer’s tool. Yet it is also tragic, as once again it is clear that Ron was not the intended target, simply an unwitting victim of a wider intrigue.

“Ron had dropped his glass; he half-rose from his chair and then crumpled, his extremities jerking uncontrollably. Foam was dribbling from his mouth, and his eyes were bulging from their sockets. [...] Harry leapt over a low table and sprinted toward Slughorn’s open potion kit, pulling out jars and pouches, while the terrible sound of Ron’s gargling breath filled the room. Then he found it — the shriveled kidney like stone Slughorn had taken from him in Potions. He hurtled back to Ron’s side, wrenched open his jaw, and thrust the bezoar into his mouth. Ron gave a great shudder, a rattling gasp, and his body became limp and still.’ (398-399)

These grisly details highlight the threat of the poison to the body. The experienced Professor's failure to react reflects the shock of the reader at the sudden change of pace, expressing the social power of poison as a hidden threat that cannot be guarded against. 

Film

Below, for comparison to the text, is the film clip of Ron's poisoning:

Works Cited
(1) Doodle Books. "J K Rowling - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince 1/1 HB". 2005. Doodle Books, England. Web. <http://www.doodledbooks.com/j-k-rowling---harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-11-hb-56-p.asp> Accessed March 2017.
Rowling, J K. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Arthur A Levine Books, New York. 2005. Web. <http://publish.uwo.ca/~hamendt/WD%20final%20Project/litertaure/Half%20Blood%20Prince.pdf> Accessed March 2017.

3. The Landlady By Roald Dahl

(1) Book Cover

Though a short story, the effect that Roald Dahl has made in this chilling tale is fantastic in producing an eerie paranoia for the reader. The protagonist Billy stays at a Boarding House with a suggestion that the Landlady poisons him by putting cyanide in his tea. This shown as the tea taste of almonds:

“Not in the least,” she said. “I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away. Will you have another cup of tea?” “No, thank you,” Billy said. The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it." (5)

For those who don't know, if anything tastes like almond, apart from almonds of course, it can suggest cyanide poisoning, with victims of this poison tending to smell of almonds: 'In murder mysteries, the detective usually diagnoses cyanide poisoning by the scent of bitter almonds' (Lutz). Placing this in the story in such a light tone subtly and cleverly communicates the dangers of the Landlady.

Further suggestions of food and poison can be seen through the rest of the short story, where Dahl has focused on the use of senses as a way of portraying the foreshadow of Billy's fate at the boarding house:

"Billy started sipping his tea. She did the same. For half a minute or so, neither of them spoke. But Billy knew that she was looking at him. […] he caught a whiff of a peculiar smell that seemed to emanate directly from her person. It was not in the least unpleasant, and it reminded him – well, he wasn’t quite sure what it reminded him of. Pickled walnuts? New leather? Or was it the corridors of a hospital? “Mr Mulholland was a great one for his tea,” she said at length.” (4)

(2) Cyanide Teacup

Peculiar about this description is Billy's lack of reaction to the strange comparisons he makes to the smell of the bed and breakfast, referring to hospitalized smells and leather, suggesting to the Landlady's hobby in taxidermy, but also her more sinister motives. The feeling of her watching over him as he drinks his tea, the taste of his tea and chilling warmth of the fireplace further this foreboding.



Overall, the text is valuable in presenting an effective form of foreshadowing, but with a tantalisingly sinister open ending. The reader can feel the eeriness of the boarding-house, as well as several the visible suggestions of what could later become of Billy.

Film

Although its effects and acting are a bit dated, I found a ITV film of the short story it is still a good watch to understand the interaction between Billy and the Landlady. 

Works Cited:
(1) Goddard, Tasha. The Land Lady - Patternmash Project. 2015. England. TashaGoddard, http://www.tashagoddard.com/2015/02/02/the-landlady-patternmash-project/.Accessed February 2017.
(2) BeatUpCreations. Cyanide Poison Altered Vintage Tea Cup. n/a. United States. Etsy. https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/502072707/cyanide-poison-altered-vintage-tea-cup?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=cyanide%20tea&ref=sr_gallery_1. Accessed February 2017.
Dahl, Roald. The Land Lady. 1959. England. Reprinted: David Highham Associates. https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/landlady_text.pdf. Accessed February 2017. 
Lutz, Diana. Beware the smell of bitter almonds: why do many food plants contain cyanide? 2010. Washington University, St. Louis: The Source. https://source.wustl.edu/2010/07/beware-the-smell-of-bitter-almonds/. Accessed February 2017.

2. Context: Poison and Food, Why?

(1) Bottle of Poison

Before we get our teeth into the poison in novels, we must understand what its use accomplishes - why it is so frequent in mystery fiction. An excellent essay on food and poison is Toxic Encounters: Poisoning in Early Modern English Literature and Culture by Catherine E. Thomas, congruent to this blog's idea of poison and food as an invasion of security and endangerment of a living need.

Thomas explores poison in literature as something with multiple meanings: ‘So what made poisoning so fashionable as a subject during the period? Simply put: it made good theatre, whether onstage or off. But more significantly perhaps, poisoning offered a sufficiently rich network of meanings to express key cultural concerns of the time.’ (48). Therefore ‘Poisoning, an act defined by the physical bodies and intimate desires of individuals, illustrates how early modern authors conceptualized subjectivity with respect to gender, sexuality, class, race, and nationality.’ (49).

Poison in food can explore a variety of traits such as empowerment of women: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, presents a female protagonist who controls her home with the threat of plant-based poisons, killing off her family if she was slighted. I will be analyzing this book in a later post. Thomas continues, ‘She classifies poisoning as a method of murder that upsets traditional early modern domestic hierarchies and allows women to gain power over the men in their lives (either by killing them off or manipulating them).’ (50).

Thomas ends with an insightful description of the metaphorical implications of poison: ‘Poisoning as an act invokes questions of wilful versus unsuspecting ingestion. […] narratives about poisoning, fictional or not, cogently express how English writers thought about its power and pervasiveness in bodies both natural and political.’ (51). Therefore, poison in food is more than a murder weapon but symbolic as showing thematic values of power, gender and societal views in literature. With these in mind, can we understand the value of poison in each text that will be analysed in this blog. 

Works Cited

(1) Chantal, Julie. Bottle of Poison. 2013. Canada. Julie-Chantal. <http://julie-chantal.deviantart.com/art/Bottle-of-Poison-386595328> Accessed February 2017.

Jackson, Shirley. We Have Always Live in the Castle. London: Penguin, 2009. Print.

Thomas, C. E. (2012), Toxic Encounters: Poisoning in Early Modern English Literature and Culture. Literature Compass, 9: 48–55. 2012. Web. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2011.00861.x/pdf> Accessed February 2017.