Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Om Nom Apples
An apple a day keeps the doctor away… provided that you're eating other foods, too. With apples as with other things in life, you can have too much of a good thing.
Apples first become significant in Skin Hunger when Hahp is trying to use the Patyàv Stone to manifest food to eat. He vividly remembers eating apples while spying on a wizard enchanting his father's horses to fly:
I could see the beads of dew on the thin gold and red apple skins. I noticed the perfect curve of the stems, and I remembered rubbing my thumb across the puckered texture of the blossom remnant in the hollow at the bottom of the fruit. I saw them, I smelled them, I could taste them, and I remembered, very clearly, the sound of biting into them. (28.32)
Excuse us while we go grab some apples to nibble on. Hahp makes them sound oh so good.
Apples of Discord
Hahp successfully channels this perfect memory of apples into a magical act, and creates a crate of apples to share with the other boys. Right away, though, cranky old Somiss appears and calls them fools, asking, "Do you think he means to help you? Or keep you weak?" (28.37). So on the one hand, apples are these really desirable, nostalgia-heavy, delicious foods, but on the other hand, they can be used to manipulate or gain power.
Pro tip: Any time you see apples in a book, it's good to think of Adam and Eve and their exile from paradise in the Bible. Why? Because it all transpired over an apple. And tangled up in this biblical apple are knowledge and good and evil, amongst other things. When it comes to the crate of apples, who do you think is good and who do you think is evil? We think you could argue in either Somiss or Hahp's defense, even if Hahp is generally the more likeable of the two. It's not like he's an angel.
Soon Hahp learns the downsides of eating nothing but apples: "And eating nothing but apples, day after day, began to upset my gut. I s*** water about half the time, and it was hard to sleep because of the cramps" (30.6). First, um, ew. Second, we're beginning to see the wisdom of a healthy, balanced diet. Third, we think that apples represent how holding onto something from childhood—a treasured memory in Hahp's case—isn't good for you in the long run.