“The Fat Girl”

In American culture, the obese body is represented very negatively. One factor that contributes to this negative representation is the abundance of negative reactions that people display towards overweight people. It is a stigma that often taints and belittles the person, leading others to judge the individual negatively, rejecting, hating, or ridiculing him or her. That can often lead the obese person to develop sever psychological problems.

In the story "The Fat Girl” by Andre Dubus, we meet Louise who has been struggling with her weight since the age of nine. Her mother is extremely outspoken and tells her that she has a problem. She would say “You must watch what you eat”(Dubus 158).Her mother was very thin and barely ate. The two of them would have salad for lunch; and while her mother was satisfied with her light lunch, Louise would be watching the breadbox in the pantry. Her mother continued to destroy her self-confidence by saying “If you are fat the boys will not like you; they will not ask you out”(Dubus 159).On the other hand, her father just brushed it off as nothing to be overly concerned about he would say “She’s a growing girl”(Dubus 159) and although he did not wholly accept Louise and her body, he does not display disapproval of her, unlike her mother and relatives. Louise then develops the habit of creeping into the kitchen late at night and hiding candy and food in her room and eating it in secret. Louise described this behavior as a “Ritual of deceit and pleasure”(Dubus 159) and this behavior continued all through High School and into College.

In college she meets Carrie her roommate. They quickly became best friends, and had long conversations at night. One night Carrie told Louise that she smelled chocolate, she said “You were eating chocolate on your bed, I wish you would eat in front of me”(Dubus