In Margaret Atwood's story, Bread, she used bread to represent a symbol of love.
One image presented is the last two sentences of the first paragraph. "Occasionally you make bread. You think of it as something relaxing to do with your hands."
This is presenting an image to the reader that sometimes they develop their own love for people or themselves unintentionally. The feeling is so remarkable that it could be thought of relaxation or their emotions are finally at peace because of this strong feeling of love.
Another image is given in the second paragraph. "The piece of bread is the bread you've been saving, for days it seems. You are as hungry as she is, but not yet as weak. How long does this take? When will someone come in with more bread?"
The bread the author presented to the reader is essentially the image of love that they have with them presently. It has shrunk severely because of some severe situation in their lives that they are in need of more. Without it, they could actually die of a broken heart, or as Margaret Atwood puts it, "hunger".
"Should you share the bread or give the whole piece to your sister? Should you eat the piece of bread yourself? After all, you have a better chance of living, you're stronger. How long does it take to decide?"
The author is introducing the fact that love is so powerful and everyone needs it. There could be a situation where they don't know if they should share it or devote it entirely to someone else and take the chance of getting broken hearted if the person does not feel the same way. Or should they cherish the love they have and keep it for themselves.
Another image that Margaret Atwood gave was, "She went to her sister and asked her for a mouthful of bread. 'My children are dying,' she said. The rich sister said, 'I do not have enough for myself,' and drove her away from the door."
The woman in this quote is in need of love and she came to her sister to ask for it. But crudely her sister turned her away because the rich sister thinks she doesn't get enough love and if she spares it, then it would never come back. This is a common everyday life situation. People are afraid to give love to the other people who "need it", probably because they are different in some ways or annoying probably because of low self-esteem and the lack of love they get. The people "need it" because somebody important in their lives don't make it obvious enough to them that they love them, so the people automatically think they need love.
"Then the husband of the rich sister came home and wanted to cut himself a piece of bread; but when he made the first cut, out flowed red blood." If someone thinks that nobody loves them, it would create a hole in their heart and therefore they could have very low self-esteem and further lead to serious consequences such as suicide or death.
"There's no doubt that you can see the bread, you can even smell it, it smells like yeast, and looks solid enough, solid as your own arm. But can you trust it? Can you eat it? You don't want to know, imagine that." It is very hard for someone to trust how deep is their mate's love for him or her. Will he/she cheat on me? Or does he/she really love me? Are common questions in everyone's head. They end up avoiding the question more and more and preying that he/she really loves them.
Bread is the symbol of love in this story and definitely talking about love metaphorically. About fear of giving away love, fear of receiving it, and questioning the amount of love that is presented to us in an everyday life situation. Margaret Atwood combined a number of different situations to show how love is given to people throughout their lives. Click HERE to visit the atdp website.