摘要
In Asian American writer Lisa See＇s novel Peony in Love （2007）, the love-sick maiden Peony commits anorexiawhich finally leads to her annihilation. Anorexia, as well as foot bonding, both of which are distortions of femalebody, convey various metaphors. The novel repeatedly presents the inability to eat or eating monotonous meals assymptoms of the nervous breakdown. Through a series of feminist psychological analysis, this paper is designed tofigure out these metaphors of anorexia within the text in the following three dimensions： anorexia as imitation of art,anorexia as failure in mother-daughter relationship and the anorexic female body as a language. After explanationsof the metaphorical meaning of anorexia, this paper aims to analyze Peony＇s starved-for-love self, and draw aconclusion about lovesickness during the whole process of Peony＇s maturation.
