ABSTRACT
Food studies has entertained not only canonical literature but works from “the edges of the canon” (Fitzpatrick 2013, 122), while comics media are often approached from literary theoretical perspectives (Chute 2008, 452). Yet the two have not previously been brought together to critically examine the role of food in Hergé’s Aventures au Tintin/Adventures of Tintin (1929–76). This chapter addresses this gap by undertaking a close reading – and viewing – of the Adventures through several overlapping critical frames. Following Tom McCarthy (2006, 9–12) and Francophone critics, the Adventures can be seen as comprising a comedic social tableau comparable, at least in its satirical leanings, to that of literary greats such as Rabelais, Shakespeare, Molière, and the Brontës, with bodily functions a subject of frequent humour. Mikhail Bakhtin’s grotesque realism ([1965] 1984, 19), fiction in which the corporeal features of the exuberant but ‘grotesque body’ is exploited to comedic ends, is much in evidence in Hergé’s work, both dramatically and visually “in the service of the gag” (Assouline 2009, 16). A character almost entirely lacking in carnal appetites, the “innocent and immaculate” (Meikle 2003, 116) Tintin finds his comedic foils first in the white fox terrier Snowy and, later, the truculent Captain Haddock. Both struggle interminably with “lower stratum” (Bakhtin [1965]1984, 23) desires, especially for food and drink, respectively, though there are overlaps, to amusing effect. Underlying the humour, however, are darker undercurrents that can be understood in terms of Julia Kristeva’s notion of abjection and the abject body ([1980] 2 1982). In terms of Hergé’s own concerns, this dramatizes an ever-present tension between ‘spiritual’ and carnal bodies, which can be framed in terms of both Judeo-Christian dualism and the Platonic dichotomy, which informed it, between the spiritual/intellectual and earthly life.
