Essay looking at Eamonn Marra's short story; Dog Farm, Food Game published in Sport 47.
Dog Farm, Food Game.
The insatiable need for connection in a lonely, isolating world.
Dog Farm, Food Game by Eamonn Marra follows the story of an unnamed protagonist of University age. Online, he meets Abby and the two of them form a relationship through cybersex that quickly becomes all consuming. This comes to a head when Abby needs to go back to University and the two have an argument over past trauma and loose contact. The piece ends with the protagonist moving past her. This piece particularly interests me because of it’s online connection. The internet; frames the story [structure, toothbrush], physically distances the characters [physical distance-no talking, flatmates] and forces an intense, all consuming, emotional attachment [cyber sex, own timezone]. It’s a text that speaks to humans' desire for connection, but also what happens when that is impossible to satisfy and the isolation which follows.
A really interesting technique Marra uses is by framing the story around the internet. Both through the ‘tooth brushing’ motif and structure of the writing.
Near the start of Abby and the protagonist's relationship, they decide to make a video of them brushing their teeth ‘together.’ To do this they record videos on their phones of them brushing their teeth at the same time and then stitching them together. While recording, the protagonist “brushed for so long that [his] gums bled and [he] smiled through the blood, which matched [his] walls and her jersey.” There’s something so visceral about this image and about the idea that the protagonist could be longing for a connection so badly that he enables himself to be in this situation. There’s something so heartbreakingly gruesome about mentioning that the color of his blood matches his own walls and Abby's jersey and when I read this I was firstly grossed out and then a sadness overcame me. The brushing becomes a motif throughout the text, with the protagonist and Abby consistently watching the video and the view count going up by at least two views per day. Often multiple times. There’s just such a loneliness that Marra installs in the characters through this reference, how badly two people need this connection to want to watch a video of each other brushing their teeth together. It’s heartbreaking.
This is further reinforced by the structure of the writing. The text starts with the protagonist as he explains “[he] met Abby when [they] were both sad, on the sad part of the internet.” This initially frames the piece inside of the realm of the internet, we know about the internet before we know anything about the protagonist. This follows through the piece, until the very end with the protagonist talking about the tooth brushing video he made with Abby, explaining how he checked the view count on each day “[t]hen [how] it stopped going up at all.” Here, Marra insinuates that the protagonist has given up on Abby and moved on from their relationship, no longer looking at a video of them ‘together.’ Personally, I adore this framing of the text, it’s so perfect to describe an online relationship and how the only thing constant about it is the internet connection. I think it’s an extremely clever technique, I’ve never seen anything framed quite like it.
The motif and structure combine to create a repetitiveness throughout the piece which creates a loneliness in the reader. The relationship is literally all consuming as it is all the reader will ever know about the two characters and that creates a claustrophobic, all encompassing, echo chamber installed into the reader.
The very choice of Marra to not include the protagonist's name, and instead Abby's highlights an obvious technique used in a piece of this nature; physical distancing. Through the distance of the characters themselves, but also the distance of the characters in relation to any others mentioned in the text.
Marra builds the piece around the internet, so obviously the physical distance “[w]ith Abby being in America, and [the protagonist] in New Zealand…” There is a huge physical barrier which separates the characters and highlights their loneliness. It’s isolating in the sense that the characters have had to turn to the ‘lonely’ part of the internet to find each other because they have no one in their lives (or even countries) to turn toward. It also creates barriers in the very nature of their relationship (such as timezones and school times) which is ultimately what breaks the relationship for good. It seems easy to talk about physical distancing in a piece set in the online world, but the heightened way in which Marra portrays it really does create something a bit special. Letting the reader into the psyche of the characters and just how desperate they are for companionship.
However, it is not only these characters that Marra creates a distance between. When the protagonist leaves his room in his flat and is confronted by his flatmate who tries to reach out by telling him his flatmates “[are] here for [him] if [he] needs to talk.” The protagonist brushes it aside and claims that he's fine, running back into his room and to his online connection with Abby. This is further reinforced when the protagonist creates his own time zone with Abby, but I’ll go into that more in the final paragraph. The physical distancing Marra creates between the protagonist and his flatmates really reinforces the extreme isolation that he feels toward anyone who is not Abby, further isolating himself toward only her. The flatmates, while only mentioned in this one instance, are not portrayed as bad, negligent friends, but as people who believe the protagonist to be capable of looking after himself and his life. To manage his depression like (presumably) he has been taught and the flatmates previously warned about. It’s alarming to read how intensely the protagonist falls down the rabbit hole of the sad part of the internet and the allure of Abby, when he so clearly needs support from people in the physical proximity of him.
The combined physical distancing of the protagonist and Abby and also the protagonist and his flatmates combine to further the isolating effect mentioned above. The protagonist falls deeply into a rabbit hole of his own creation, yet sees no desire in leaving it, plummeting deeper and deeper into his depressive state masked in something positive because of his attraction to Abby. While he fails his University courses and loses contact with his friends he gains this all consuming relationship, all as the viewer watches, helpless.
This relationship, the intense all consuming emotional attachment is shown to the viewer through the timezone that the protagonist and Abby create (mentioned above) and through cyber sex.
When Abby and the protagonist are figuring out how to navigate their consuming, online relationship they decide to “develop [their] own time zone, one where [they] would never have to be awake without each other.” This further establishes the lengths that these two characters will go to find a connection in their lonely world. They quickly have no life outside of each other, which is beautifully tragic as they never actually connect with each other, just type words and never hear each other's voices. It really does have an isolating effect, with the viewer watching as the characters fall into such destructive roles for each other. This dynamic comes from how badly the characters need each other, the support system that they created, yet how detrimental it becomes to each other's mental health. Two people simply cannot be dependent on each other as much as these two characters and have it be a healthy relationship. Instead, these two fall into a toxic hole with the protagonist encouraging Abby's eating disorders without even realizing what he is doing and furthering her self endangerment.
This insatiable dependance is further reinforced through the use of cyber sex. The protagonist explains their relationship, that “[i]t’s easy to fall in love on the sad part of the internet… First you favorite each other’s depression jokes-humor that is hilarious to the sad, but scary to the happy- then you message casually, then obsessively, and then you have cam sex. The first time we had cam sex it was fast and silent.” The two then go on to consistently have cyber sex with each other throughout the piece. This highlights both characters' intense need for intimacy and to feel desired, yet with no one in their lives showing them this affection they turn to the internet and each other (practically strangers) to gain this connection. It’s a desperate message which leaves the reader feeling intensely for these two characters and the unhealthy dynamic that they create together and works toward highlighting the utter loneliness the characters must feel in their everyday lives to turn to this.
The timezones and the cyber sex work together to highlight an insatiable relationship that because of the isolating distance between them, will never be overcome. The two characters develop a co-dependence so strong and unhealthy they are practically incapable of living without each other for a time. Even when not directly together they watch the tooth brushing video to further maintain the connection, all the time without any intimacy.
Dog Farm, Food Game by Eamonn Marra is a text that has stayed with me for months. At the start, I thought it was nothing too special. But revisiting the green book and developing my writing further has made it more and more intriguing as a text and something I have continuously revisited. It highlights two people's inherent desire for connection in such a lonely world, yet how detrimental it can be to find someone who desires it just as desperately as you do. It’s a sad warning of a 21st Century reality, and an exploration of an online world I’ve never seen mentioned before in fiction. It’s a highly impactful piece I’d recommend to anyone, if only to learn a bit more about the world we now have access to and the sad parts of the internet.
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