Thinking about Lieutenant Hodgson and hunger.

Like, how he ist he character to consistently display the most intimate relationship with hunger—not the concern of the other officers about the mathematics of food (like Irving’s listing of the provisions), but the very real consequences for the men.

It’s easy to miss when he returns from his scouting trip because that episode wants to sell us on the tuunbaq as the biggest threat to the expedition, as evidenced by Gore’s gory (heh) death, but Hodgson spells out the real cause of their doom while almost no one is listening.

He notes that the provisions were spoiled “almost inedibly so.”

He’s the one who expresses the almost misplaced joy at Lady Jane’s Christmas pudding—macabre in the context of their dwindling provisions, yes, but there is a reason he says it, and says it like that: It must have been a treat to have after the ever-same provisions.

There’s a joy in food that the other officers have lost, or at least are not considering anymore.

Shoutout to his whole thing about the origins of the word ‘diet’ as “a way of life.” Again, what a telling moment. The relationship to food is basal to how we live. Of course, it becomes less funny five minutes later when the sailors start eating each other.

But then, what is Hodgson’s role if not to provide unsettling, Greek chorus commentary on the expedition.

All of this culminates, of course, in his confession to Goodsir. “I’m hungry and I want to live” is a stand-in for how most of the sailors feel at this point, I reckon. It sums up the very personal relationship between food + hunger + starvation that they’re all experiencing.

But here’s my thesis: Hodgson is the character who embodies this theme of hunger because he has already experienced a spiritual hunger for most of his life.

Hodgson’s little Catholic cannibal moment was the one time he felt fulfilled (spiritually) and he’s spent the rest of his life in spiritual starvation mode. Of course he recognizes and emphasizes the themes of hunger and starvation when they come up.

Ending, of course, on “dis-mois ce que tu manges, et je te dirai ce que tu es,” which is really a summary of everything he stood for before. Hodgson walked onto the show like ‘is anybody going to represent the themes of hunger + starvation’ and didn’t wait for an answer.

also i can't believe i forgot the virginia ham!!