Unit 3. post 4.

The Joy of Cooking by Elaine Magarrell.

While this story is rather creepy and, lets face it, strange, it offers a profound way of experiencing the emotions and personalities of siblings. When the speaker says "I will have my brother's heart, which is firm and rather dry, slow cooked" (Magarrell, line 9-10), I don't think it means she will literally rip her brother's heart out and eat it. I think that the speaker is referring to how her brother acts. The speaker's brother is probably lacking in emotion and very distant to his siblings. Maybe the speaker is suggesting that he lacks love or compassion. I don't think that there is any literal meaning to any of these metaphors, all of them are meant to be viewed symbolically. How these two siblings are described, it seems that the sister is talkative and very loose with how she speaks to others. The brother's heart is compared in size to a beef heart, which could be seen as a literal comparison, is more likely a symbolic representation of how his heart is lacking and does not have the capacity to provide love for more than one person. 

While there is a disturbing outer message, there is a more focused lesson underneath. That is that siblings are all different, and how they relate is a very balanced, sometimes caustic if not nurtured or developed, relationship.