Why Does Clive Barker's Use Of Food

Clive Barker wrote a book called the The Thief of Always. In this book a kid named Harvey adventures into the mysterious Holiday House. In this novel Barker uses food in an unexpected way to advance the plot of his story. Clive Barker doesn’t only use food as a thing to fill a child’s stomach,but as a tool to keep him/her in the house and even a weapon.
Food is used as a tool to keep the kids attracted to the holiday house. Food makes the house seem like the perfect place to stay. About 2 minutes after Harvey enters the house Mrs. Griffin places like a million dishes of food on the table, and Barker states, “He set to eating with gusto, and was devouring his second slice of pie”(23) “He set eating with gusto”means that Harvey is eating with

When Rictus first leads Harvey into the holiday house and meets Mrs.Giffin. She says to Harvey,“So let me tempt you with some treats.”(22) Mrs. Griffin tempts Harvey with some treats, usually when we think about treats we like to think about pies, pancakes, and candy. All of those treats contain a lot of sugar, and what do kids like? SUGAR. After Harvey refuses to eat anything from the house, Jive uses delicious looking sugary foods to try to tempt him to eat. When Harvey was talking with Jive about the food, Barker states, “Harvey looked down at the plate. The pie was golden brown and dusted with sugar, the ice cream melting in a sweet, white pool! It Certainly looked tempting.“ (163). Barker uses extreme detail and describes the sugary food so that is make it look so delicious and so sugary. Harvey must have been drooling when he saw it.Food always seems so good and so tempting to kids, especially the ones that have extra sugar. Using these type of foods in a story about children is very

Food is like a dangerous weapon to any of the dust brothers. After Jive tries to prove to Harvey that the food is not dust by eating it, and suicide, Barker states, “The dying creature reached up with an almost fingerless hand, still hoping—even as its life drifted away—that its creator would come to save it. ”(166) Harvey witnessed Jive slowly die because he ate the food he was serving to him. Jive, knowing that Hood is in control, tries to get help from his creator by pleading, but it never worked. In this case food is used like one of those weapons that when you consume, you die a extremely slow death. Food is used as one of Harvey’s weapons to defeat Hood. When Hood was trying to get Harvey to stay in the holiday house Harvey asks, “So how about something to eat?”(191) When Harvey asks for food, Hood would think that it is normal for a kid to ask for treats, so he doesn’t suspect that Harvey is just trying to weaken him until he can’t control his magic. In this story food is used very creatively, in this case it is used as a weapon to defeat his