During World War II, we bought sealed plastic packets of white, uncolored margarine, with a tiny, intense pellet of yellow coloring perched like a topaz just inside the clear skin of the bag. We would leave the margarine out for a while to soften, and then we would pinch the little pellet to break it inside the bag, releasing the rich yellowness into the soft pale mass of margarine. Then taking it carefully between our fingers, we would knead it gently back and forth, over and over, until the color had spread throughout the whole pound bag of margarine, thoroughly coloring it.
I find the erotic such a kernel within myself. When released from its intense and constrained pellet, it flows through and colors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience.”
Audre Lorde, 1978, pg. 90.
In these paragraphs, Lorde is describing the act of kneading food coloring throughout a packet of margarine as a process similar to spreading the use of erotic throughout different aspects of life. In the first paragraph, Lorde uses an example that may be familiar to her audience at the time to invoke strong imagery for her understanding of the erotic. For example, she describes the margarine as “sealed plastic packets of white, uncolored” food, but the words she utilizes do not provide an appetizing experience. “Sealed,” “plastic,” and “uncolored” paint images of processed food that leave a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. She juxtaposes this imagery with her introduction of the yellow food coloring in the center of the packet. “A tiny, intense pellet of yellow coloring perched like a topaz.” Only focusing on the food coloring gives the reader a much more appealing focus. While the use of “topaz” illustrates the color of the pellet in the center of the margarine, it also serves to illuminate the author’s feelings toward the erotic: valuable and awe-inspiring. Lorde continues by detailing how the yellow food coloring is spread throughout the distasteful margarine by the use of kneading to create a more palatable pound of margarine. The process of kneading the margarine is not one the author glosses over. She describes the process with utmost care and determination to spread the coloring. For Lorde, the erotic (the food coloring) is just as important as the work (the kneading). One cannot simply recognize the erotic and bring “colors” to their life; one must engage in the work to make the erotic more meaningful.
For my “key,” I understand the author’s use of kneading as a form of work. By referening page 88, one will notice that Lorde mentions this idea of work serveral times. One the same page, Lorde describes how women were taught to seperate the erotic from areas of life outside of sex, and without the erotic in work, there will be no satisfaction in work or life. When I first read page 88, I interpretted it as a loss of erotic has lead to a dissatisfaction in work. I could not quite comprehend why Lorde would want to solely relate the erotic with productivity and captialism. After reading about the yellow margarine, I started to see her words differently. It was not about the erotic bringing satisfaction to work, but rather how working to spread the erotic to other aspects of life can bring satisfaction (and yes that could even be to one’s work, but it does not need to be necessarily).
As for my “lock,” I am still struggling with the author’s use of imagery. While I see the metaphor of the food coloring spreading throughout margarine to enrich the color of the food, I do not quite see why the author thought this would be the most useful analogy. For me, when I think about spreading the food coloring throughout the margarine, I still find the whole scene unappetizing. Were there not better examples to choose from? I imagine there must be another instance that could compel the reader to seek out the erotic and empower themselves.
I agree with your analysis of how you related the creation of the margarine to work, in how when a woman drew upon the inspiration and emotion inside her to work those feelings into her actions and words. I wonder if the very vivid imagery of mixing margarine (especially the tactile sensory imagery of mixing yellow in and the strength and will it takes to incorporate all of that source color into the end product) was chosen specifically because of how the effort into making margarine could parallel the strength and effort it takes to rework emotions into poetry and action.
Similarly, the imagery of making margarine in this context (since it was World War II) draws an association to how women took on men’s roles in America while men left to fight in the war. When women first were given the attention regarding their value in work, this could mirror the value that should be ascribed to females who write poetry of their selves.