Ljubica Matek ABSTRACT

“Irony and Ethics: Veganism in T. C. Boyle’s 'Carnal Knowledge' ”

Ljubica Matek, University of Osijek, Croatia

 

The paper aims to show that Thomas Coraghessan Boyle’s short story “Carnal Knowledge” (Without a Hero and Other Stories, 1994) relies on irony and humorous tone to facilitate a form of ideological deconstruction. In the story, veganism is represented as a contentious concept, vegan characters as “monstrous” (as per Quinn 2021), and the non-vegan autodiegetic narrator as irreparably influenced by carnophallogocentric thinking. The meaning of the story’s archaic central term (and title), carnal knowledge, which euphemistically denotes sexual intercourse, pervades the story due to the narrator’s male gaze directed at the female protagonist, but it also connotes the ingestion of meat. The narrator’s decisions are motivated by hunger both for a meaty meal and for sex with Alena. Equating human body with flesh, and coitus with the act of eating echoes Margaret St Clair’s humorous assertion that “[i]ncorporation [being] the ultimate intimacy ... [t]here is no form of carnal knowledge so complete as that of knowing how someone tastes” (1). Despite the lack of the protagonists’ spiritual growth or ideological change, the story’s representation of events fosters reparative criticism of both vegan practices and attitudes to veganism, as well as of the general notion of unchecked consumption. Stereotypes of men who deal with existential doubts by giving in to casual sex or overeating, and of radically violent activists whose actions frequently backfire highlight the performative nature of our desires as well as the futility of both exploitation (for sex or food) and exclusionary perspectives, since neither hedonism nor puritanism can offer a fully ethical mode of being. In that sense, by ironizing the characters’ motivation and behaviour, the story “draws metafictional attention to the role of texts in constructing our ethical lives” (Quinn 26), inviting both scrutiny and acceptance.

 

Keywords: T. C. Boyle, “Carnal Knowledge,” irony, vegan activism, ethics