Eating sugar
In the short story, ”Eating Sugar” by Catherine Merriman, we are introduced to the theme of Xenophobia; the irrational fear of places or people that seem foreign to oneself. This is done as an indirect criticism of the prejudiced tendency of modern society, as people often seem to frown upon those who appear unfamiliar, and look at them as primitive and hostile.
We are, through a third-person, non-omniscient narrator presented to a family of three, the father Alex and the mother Eileen, who are visiting their daughter Suzanne who works as a teacher in Thailand. The narrator is non-omniscient, as the story is told from Alex’s perspective, and the reader therefore does not become aware of neither Eileen nor Suzanne’s thoughts.
The story starts in medias res, as it begins in the middle of the action, when the family comes back from a trip to the waterfall, and realizes that they are lost. They have been down at a waterfall, and Alex suspects that they might have taken a wrong turn, hence “three hours ago, this forest clearing had been a busy market…”and it becomes apparent, that they are not aware of their location, and they need help to get home, which they come to receive from 4 Thai-men who randomly walks by.
Eileen, as well as Alex, seems to possess a dislike of Thailand, as seen in the quote
“Eileen found Thailand stressful, and wasn't ashamed to show it. Alex was grateful to her. Her constantly-expressed anxiety kept his own fear suppressed.”
This quite clearly illustrates that they are uncomfortable in Thailand, and feel insecure here. The dislike towards their foreign surroundings also becomes apparent in the descriptions of the environment in the text, as Alex has a very negative attitude towards the environment in the start of the text, for example:
"All that remained was a corrugated-iron toilet block, and the heavy trestles, benches and skeletal roof frameworks of the cafés. Plus the dark press of the rainforest around them."
The environment is described in a very dark and pessimistic tone, and it gives the reader an image of something completely deserted, bare, dark and boring, as if it had been left there smoldering away for a couple of years, even though they are surrounded by a rain-forest, and he could have focused on this beauty. Especially the part concerning the “skeletal roof” shows us how his depiction of his surroundings is affected by his negative mood towards the foreign environment.
Their dislike of Thailand and the foreignness of it, in addition with the fact that they are lost, combines into a very stressful situation, which we also clearly see in the way Eileen, as well as Alex reacts:
""I don't like this," said Eileen. There was a tremor in her voice. Anything could happen. That was what she meant. Anything could happen. And she was right. […] So many surprises. […] A mindset that was contradictory, incomprehensible. The Land of Smiles; but also of pirates, and bandits."
They are extremely pre-judgmental of the young men approaching them, and instead of seeing them as the happy people they were, they become very afraid and paranoid, because of the unfamiliarity between them. They let their prejudice take over, because they were insecure in the situation, and it almost ends up ruining their chance for a free ride home, when Alex wants to walk away.
Here their daughter Suzanne takes over the role as the “comforting parent” and convinces Alex to stay, because she are sure that the Thai-men are good people, even though Alex and Eileen does not like the situation. Alex also comes to remember a certain situation from when he and Eileen was their daughters age, and they were experimenting with a hallucinogenic drug called LSD, and his wife Eileen overcame the anxiousness it provoked, by eating sugar straight from the bag, as they had heard that it should make the anxiousness go away. This bond between them becoming the discomforted “kids” and their daughter taking over the role as the responsible “parent”, is also a parallel to when the parents were at her age, and was “experimental”, which she now is, but instead of drugs, she does it by being open-minded and ready to take on new experiences.
Alex also mentions that there seem to be parallels in this incident, as to their current situation in Thailand.
“The foreignness of Thailand was mind-expanding. You couldn't comprehend how different a culture could be till you experienced it. A perceptual door was opened that could never be reclosed. And there was a surreal quality to the experience, your senses, understandings, constantly challenged. But after the sugar moment Eileen had gone to enjoy herself, no, more than that - to marvel at the sensory richness of a normally invisible, unguessed-at world. She had never regretted that single experimental trip.”
This quote shows perfectly how the xenophobia can be overcome, if you just let yourself enjoy the experience, and maybe pull something familiar into the experience to comfort yourself. This is also a parallel to the story of the LSD trip, hence LSD works by making you hallucinate and “expand your mind”, but can be “contained” and controlled into a point where you do not get overwhelmed. During Eileen’s LSD trip, she does this by eating sugar, and in the incident with the Thai men, Eileen and Alex overcome their fear when they sit down and drink a beer with the Thai-men. They bring in something familiar, and something they have in common, so they can use it as a comforting-tool to bind their cultures together in a comfortable setting.
Right after the moment where they “get their sugar” in the form of the beer they drink with the Thai-men, everything suddenly turns right around. Suddenly, just like when Eileen ate the sugar, Alex sees how beautiful everything is, and starts enjoying himself, and becomes positive.
This creates a clear contrast from the beginning, in the descriptions of the landscape and how he feels about it:
“The rushing air was wonderful against the dampness of Alex's skin. Energy, life, was flooding back into him...An illuminated forest had appeared, between the coast road and the sea. Huge beach palm trees with gracefully curved trunks, festooned, right to their arching, feathery tops, with white fairy lights. The sea, the backcloth between the trunks, was black velvet, edged with frothy strips of brilliant white foam. Like an elaborately decorated stage set. How incredibly Thai. Alex felt he had never seen anything so beautiful.”
This is exactly like when Eileen had eaten the sugar, and starts enjoying herself. The start of the story was Alex’s anxiety fit, and the beer was his sugar. Now, just like LSD works, he expands his mind, and sees everything in its most beautiful depiction, which is also clearly seen in the way the text gets extremely descriptive, and contrary to the beginning, it now does it in a positive way.
We also see this development in the descriptions from the beginning where the forest is being used negatively “…dark press of rainforest around them” And now it is, “an illuminated forest”, the air also undergoes the same development, from being an “Awful drenching heat” to be “The rushing air was wonderful against the dampness of Alex's skin.”
These contrasts further illustrate how Catherine Merriman uses the LSD story as the plot for the whole story, and hereby shows us how to experiment with our xenophobia, and be more open-minded towards foreign experiences and people, and stop being pre-conceptive about our lives, to try and enjoy and cherish each and every moment, and make the most of it.

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[ 1 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p1, line 2-3.
[ 2 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p1, line 19-20.
[ 3 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p1, line 3-5
[ 4 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p2, line 73-76
[ 5 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p2, line 51-56
[ 6 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, pp3-4, line 110-128
[ 7 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p3, line 80-86
[ 8 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p3, line 87-93
[ 9 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p4, line 144-145+line 150-154
[ 10 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p1, line 5
[ 11 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p4, line 150
[ 12 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p1, line 9-10
[ 13 ]. Merriman, Catherine. “Eating Sugar”, p4, line 144-145