The Great: Why Does Catherine Eat Dirt?
The Great season 2 sees a pregnant Catherine the Great compulsively eating dirt. While it’s played for laughs, there’s a good reason for it.
You Are Reading :The Great Why Does Catherine Eat Dirt
Warning: Contains spoilers for The Great season 2.
Throughout the early episodes of The Great season 2, Catherine eats dirt multiple times and the reason is never explained. The Great is advertised as being “an occasionally true story” and stretches the limits of that statement at times. However, while some elements are just jokes, a lot of the things that the showrunners included do have a real basis in history and there is a great reason for why Catherine eats dirt in The Great season 2.
The Great season 2 picks up four months after the end of season 1 with Catherine (Elle Fanning) notably pregnant and the season covers the months up to the birth of Paul and beyond. The motivation behind Catherine’s actions often isn’t immediately clear, but when Catherine eats dirt it is never really explained. It is first introduced in The Great season 2, episode 1 “Heads It’s Me,” and one scene shows Catherine surreptitiously scraping dirt from the edge of her tent. This progresses over the following episodes and Elizabeth’s (Belinda Bromilow) friendship to Catherine is shown through her delivering dirt to her on a platter.
However, Catherine’s craving for dirt in The Great season 2, though not explained, is a not-uncommon side effect of pregnancy. If the cravings persist beyond a month and after pregnancy, then it is considered an eating disorder called pica. Pica is simply the ongoing compulsive need to eat non-food items which, depending on the items eaten and the longevity of the condition, can either be relatively harmless or have serious long-term effects. A part of The Great season 2’s historical accuracy, in pregnant people pica is most commonly caused by a nutrient deficiency which Catherine, living in the 1700s, likely would have suffered from in some form. Today, pregnant people are usually treated for the compulsion with vitamin supplements that solve the nutrient deficiency, rather than being given fancy bowls filled with dirt.
This demonstration of Catherine’s craving for eating dirt is not only entertaining to watch and a historically accurate representation of pregnancy experiences, but it also serves an important narrative purpose. In the series, Catherine has had herself crowned as empress and taken the title Catherine the Great. The Great season 2 sees her embody this title in a lot of ways, but also shows her failing to enact many of the things that she wishes to. The representation of Catherine in The Great season 2 as scrounging for dirt or having it brought to her by Elizabeth in a dish does a lot to juxtapose Catherine’s importance and “Great”-ness with a much baser image, hammering home larger thematic ideas.
Surprisingly, a great many of the pregnancy tricks that are included in The Great season 2 and are written off as silly and ridiculous actually have real historical applications that worked, even if the people administering them didn’t know why. For instance, Elizabeth has Catherine suck on a nail: this iron nail would have helped to introduce small amounts of iron into her body and would have helped with iron deficiencies common in pregnancy. Doctor Vinodel is asked about the taste of her urine which was also a common practice and could be used to diagnose symptoms such as gestational diabetes if the urine was sweet. Similarly, in The Great season 2, Catherine is subjected to giving birth to Paul in public. While this was a tradition at the time for rulers, it was not actually the experience that Catherine had herself.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/great-season-2-catherine-eat-dirt-reason/