Blood and Feeding Symbol Analysis in Blood on Her Tongue

Introduction: Blood as the Medium of Life and Horror

In Johanna van Veen’s gothic horror novel, Blood on Her Tongue, blood and feeding are not merely gory details — they are the literal and symbolic veins through which the story’s deepest conflicts flow. Blood acts as the medium of possession, sustenance, and twisted connection between the twin sisters, Lucy and Sarah. Feeding, in turn, becomes a moral battleground: it begins as a private compulsion, escalates into parasitic dependence, and finally forces a choice to commit murder to preserve a loved one.

The novel’s Author’s Note warns readers of body horror and toxic codependency, setting the stage for a story in which blood is both life-giving and corrupting. By tracing how the motif recurs and shifts meaning, we can understand how van Veen uses this visceral imagery to explore sisterhood and codependency, moral compromise and violence, and parasitism and identity.

What Blood and Feeding Literally Are

In the world of the novel, blood is the substance that allows an ancient parasite — the entity that becomes Not-Sarah — to survive, move between hosts, and eventually merge with a person. Feeding means consuming human blood and flesh. The parasite cannot sustain itself on animal blood or cooked meat; only fresh human material provides the nourishment it needs to repair its host body and maintain its identity.

The parasite’s modus operandi is to attach itself to a living human, gradually absorb their personality, and eventually take over completely. When the host dies — as happened with the bog woman Marianne — the parasite can hibernate by consuming the host’s organs from within. The entity itself describes this as a kind of tick-like behavior, needing only one large meal to survive for years. However, when it transfers to a living host (Sarah), it requires regular feeding to heal and sustain its new body.

Blood also serves as a means of connection. The parasite explains that once it merges with a host, “I’m in your blood, and you are in mine.” This is not metaphor: the entity literally shares blood with its host, and that shared blood creates an unbreakable bond.

Where the Motif Recurs and How Its Meaning Changes

The motif of blood and feeding appears throughout the novel, shifting in significance from innocent habit to savage necessity.

The shift is dramatic. Early in the story, blood is something accidental (Lucy’s cut tongue) or scientific (Sarah’s notes on ticks). By the climax, it becomes the justification for killing Michael and Arthur. Lucy provides Not-Sarah with human meat, and the act of feeding is depicted as joyful for the entity: she drinks Michael’s blood “gleefully” and proposes to consume his entire body.

Character Connections

• Lucy Goedhart — Lucy is the primary feeder. She gives her own blood through small cuts (biting her tongue, pricking her finger) and eventually kills to provide larger meals. Her identity is so wrapped up in being Sarah’s twin that she cannot refuse, even when the cost is murder.

• Sarah / Not-Sarah — Sarah is both victim and predator. She is possessed by the parasite, yet she retains enough of her original personality to feel love for Lucy and Katje. Her craving for blood is described as an all-consuming hunger that temporarily restores her vitality.

• Arthur Hoefnagel — The doctor dismisses Sarah’s illness as hysteria. He attempts to force-feed her normal food, but she bites him. His role highlights the failure of medical authority to understand the supernatural.

• Michael Schatteleyn — Michael is Lucy’s lover and Sarah’s husband. He becomes the primary victim: Lucy kills him to prevent him from harming Not-Sarah, and his body provides the first large meal.

• Katje — Katje understands Sarah’s condition in folk terms, believing her to be a revenant. She willingly offers small amounts of her own blood. Her unswerving loyalty creates a parallel to Lucy’s sacrifice.

• The Bog Woman (Marianne) — Marianne was the parasite’s first host. Her body, staked in the bog with a stone in its mouth, is the origin of the hunger motif. The memory of her emaciated corpse haunts the narrative and foreshadows Sarah’s decay.

Theme Connections

Sisterhood and Codependency

Blood feeding is the physical manifestation of the twins’ codependency. Lucy describes herself as a shadow to Sarah’s fully realized person. The act of giving blood — and later committing murder for Sarah — shows that Lucy’s identity is not separate from her twin’s survival. The sisterhood and codependency theme is thus deepened by the literal exchange of bodily fluids.

Parasitism and Identity

The parasite’s feeding blurs the line between self and other. Not-Sarah tells Lucy, “I’m in your blood, and you are in mine.” This implies that once blood is shared, identity becomes ambiguous. The theme of parasitism and identity is explored through the question of whether Sarah is still present inside Not-Sarah.

Madness and Social Control

Doctors interpret Sarah’s refusal to eat normal food and her craving for blood as symptoms of “fever of the brain.” Arthur tries to feed her forcibly, which she rejects by biting him. This mirrors the historical conflation of mental illness with deviance from social norms. The madness and social control theme is highlighted by the fact that the parasite’s feeding is pathological only because it transgresses societal expectations.

Moral Compromise and Violence

Lucy’s decision to kill Michael and Arthur is framed as necessary for Not-Sarah’s survival. The feeding motif forces the reader to consider: at what point does mercy become murder? The moral compromise and violence theme reaches its peak when Lucy stages an elopement to cover up the killings and provides the first meal.

Female Desire and Agency

Blood drinking in the novel is often described with sensuality: Sarah licks her fingers, her cheeks flush prettily, the ribbon stains Lucy’s lips red. This eroticization of feeding connects to female desire and agency. The act of feeding — taking what one needs — becomes a transgressive assertion of selfhood, especially for women constrained by late 19th-century Dutch society.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the act of biting the teacup in Chapter 11 function as a turning point in the motif?

Lucy inadvertently bites through the rim of a teacup, cutting her tongue. She spits blood into the cup, and Sarah — already possessed by the parasite — drinks it. This is the first time Sarah consumes Lucy’s blood. Before this, blood had been an abstract threat (tick notes, the bog woman). After this, feeding becomes direct, intimate, and acknowledged by both sisters. The scene transforms blood from a substance that is outside the body (sucked from a ribbon) into something that must be exchanged to sustain the relationship.

2. In what ways does Not-Sarah differentiate between feeding on a living host and eating for sustenance?

Not-Sarah explains to Lucy that merging with a living host (like Sarah) is a gradual process of absorbing personality and memories, while eating a dead or soon-to-be-dead body for sustenance (like consuming Michael’s flesh) does not alter her character. She can eat anyone without becoming them. This distinction is crucial because it separates the crime of murder from the horror of losing identity. Lucy can accept feeding as a necessary evil, but she cannot accept that Not-Sarah will become someone else.

3. How does the motif of blood connect to the theme of being a “fully realized person”?

Lucy describes Sarah as a “fully realized” person — someone with a distinct identity beyond being a twin. The parasite, in contrast, survives by latching onto and consuming fully realized individuals. Blood feeding represents the transfer of identity: when the parasite drinks blood, it also drinks memory and personality. Lucy, who feels like a shadow, is paradoxically more protected from being absorbed because she has less of a solidified self. The motif suggests that the most “fully realized” people are the most vulnerable to parasitic possession.

4. Why does the novel end with the three women disappearing, rather than a resolution of the feeding curse?

The ambiguous ending — a newspaper clipping reporting the women missing — leaves the feeding motif unresolved. The parasite still needs human meat, yet Lucy, Not-Sarah, and Katje have escaped. By not showing them caught or cured, the novel suggests that the cycle of feeding may continue indefinitely. This ambiguity forces readers to confront the moral complexity of the choice: Lucy chose to protect her sister at the cost of making her a perpetual predator. The question is not how the story ends, but how far one will go for love.

Conclusion

Blood and feeding are more than monstrous gimmicks in Blood on Her Tongue — they are the engine of the plot and the metaphor for the twin bond. From Lucy’s childhood habit of sucking ribbons to the final staged murder, the motif traces a trajectory from innocent comfort to violent necessity. By tying the act of feeding to sisterhood, identity, and moral compromise, Johanna van Veen creates a symbol that is both viscerally horrifying and emotionally resonant. For readers, the question lingers: would we, like Lucy, feed the monster we love?