Margaret Atwood: The Analysis Of "The Edible Woman"
Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Edible Woman, is a feminist novel because it characteristically recognizes the stereotyping that women go through their entire lives. The author addresses the debate on gender that has occurred since the 1960s and weaves it into a dynamic context of a dystopian novel. Atwood denies women of all rights and creates an intense edition of patriarchy in the society. As a result, her stories portray the sexual discrimination and silencing of women. Atwood is attempting to exterminate the gender-based system that entails women's suppression as well as perceives women and men to be at the same social status in the society. This book discusses the journey towards achieving personal identity as witnessed in Marian’s life.
The novel narrates from the first person to the third person, and later back to first person to show the detachment of Marians identity, and later regaining control over her life. In the novel, Atwood’s protagonist is an ordinary woman named Marian, who seems restricted in a weird world for her practically urbanizing world. Atwood tells the story of Marian, a woman who struggles with pressures of society, her fiancé, and food. Marian leads a boring and typical lifestyle; she is wary of working in the department of public services; crafting survey questions and sampling products. She shares a small apartment which is part of the large home with her roommate Ainsley. The owner of the home lives downstairs with her young daughter and she is very observant on what the girls do and want them to be a good example for her child. This illustrates the pressures woman faced in the 1960s. Throughout the novel, Marian observes and rejects the roles pressured on her by society in hopes of achieving self identity and knowledge.
The story starts off with two strong female characters; Marian and Ainsley. The two women are withdrawn by society because of differences in their thoughts and ideas. Ainsley and Mariam aren’t close, but have managed to maintain a civil relationship for the time being; and are on the consensus that each of them clean and maintain boundaries. Ainsley seems to be a parody of extreme feminism. She is constantly attacking other woman; “that old bitch, why can’t she mind her own business?” (Atwood 7). Ainsley says this about her neighbour. She also states that “every woman should have at least one baby. ” (41). Ainsley says this because she thinks having a child will fulfill a woman’s deepest femininity. In reality, she seems to be acting as a non-feminist when she says this, because a woman should be able to choose whether they want to have a child or not. Ainsley also appears to not care about what society thinks of her since she wants to get pregnant without being married. This was looked down upon back in the mid-20th century and was seen as a sin. Nonetheless, Ainsley doesn’t seem to care about how society viewed her, and she wanted to change the overall prospective of how individuals viewed women. We see Ainsley not care about societies standards when she beings Leonard Slank over to her apartment. Ainsley decided she is going to seduce Leonard, who is a friend of Marian’s. She wants Leonard to get her pregnant without him knowing. This also shows us that Ainsley is selfish, and doesn’t think about how her actions can affect others. She is compared to a “pitcher plant waiting for some insect to be attracted, drowned and digested” (81). It seems as if the roles are reversed between Len and Ainsley; as Ainsley dresses as an innocent school girl to trick Len into sleeping with her. Marian dated a man by the name Peter. Peter is a lawyer with a passionate interest in guns and cameras. Marian seems to have a difficult time realizing how she truly feels about Peter. It seems as if she is not in love with him, even if she says she does.
After all of Peter’s friends became wedded, he eventually decided to propose. Peter seemed to be moving into a direction he thought was the right path. Marian accepts, even though she clearly stated she didn’t want to get married yet. Marian and Peter then began calling each other cliché names such as “darling” which they have never done before. It seems as if they are trying to be the ideal stereotypical couple to meet societies needs. Right after Marian accepts Peters proposal, she begins losing her appetite. Marian was starting to realizes Peter was consuming her, and taking control of her life. She feels that after their marriage, she will cease to exist. Peter then begins to treat Marian more like his wife and less like an independent woman. We see peter stereotype Marian when “Peter pushed his plate away. 'Why can't you ever cook anything?' he said petulantly. "(69) This states that woman should be able to cook of the men. Throughout the book, Marian is constantly doubting whether Peter is the one for her, and the situation becomes very complicated. Not long after, Marian found herself intrigued by a man named Duncan, while completing a beer survey questionnaire. Duncan, who is a collage graduate attracts her with his odd and captivating answers. Marian finds herself hanging out with Duncan a lot more than she should be, but she tries justifying her decisions by telling herself Duncan is “only a friend. ” Even if Marian knows Duncan is using her, she still decides to have sex with him in a hotel room, and cheats on Peter. All Marian is doing is attempting to overcome the cycle of monotonous worries in both the spiritual and the physical world. She wants to escape the dependent status of women in the male-dominated society. The novel presents a society in which men are ‘predators' of women. A sensitive protagonist is one of the pragmatists who feels a real threat hovering over her internal self, and rapidly coming to understand her deepest thoughts and feelings that she has tried to air out.
For example, the job she works for is very discriminative against women. “The Company is layered like an ice-cream sandwich, with three floors; the upper crust, the lower crust, and our department, the gooey layer in the middle” (18). Marian’s department is all women; above her are where all men work, and below her are the machines. This shows that only the men work on the top floor, and both sexes work separately. Marian also doesn’t have a good future ahead of her because her job does not provide an adequate pension plan. Correspondingly, marriage or pregnancy is seen as disloyalty to the company and it’s expected for the woman to quit. Initially, Marian is hesitant to participate in any common habits. For instance, she talks about the requirement to contribute to the pension scheme. She says, “it bothered me more than it should have. It wasn’t only the feeling of being subject to rules I had no interest in and no part in making: you get adjusted to that at school” (Atwood 21). Consequently, she is at a central position in her life, examining and rejecting roles assigned to her by the society in her attempt to achieve self-knowledge. Marian’s collogues at work also show several attitudes towards their own status as women. They are nicknamed “the office virgins” are unaware of being victims of a male-dominated society. They seem to accept society’s definition of the role of a woman. Their purpose in life seems to be about getting married and having children. A collogue of Marians named Lucy, is the definition of a “stereotypical woman. ” She dresses very elegant and acts in a pleasing manner. She also visits expensive restaurants on a daily in hopes of meeting her future husband. These confirmations show the reader that woman are to serve a purpose for men. To further this statement; while Marian was completing a survey task for work; she was alarmed by a remark of a man she interviews. He says: “You ought to be at home with some big strong man to take care of you” (50). This ignorant phrase states that a woman needs a man to protect her, because a woman cannot protect herself. Marian compares herself with other women in the novel, and she dislikes their appearance. She analyzes her image as a mother and a wife through Clara who is expectant. Clara and her husband Joe seem to meet societies expectations by being a wedded couple whom had children after marriage. Marian thinks Clara is filling the world with kids for no good reason.
Consequently, she dislikes Clara's position in the society. Marian also perceives Ainsley to be dominating and immoral after she plans to lure Len Shank into impregnating her. Ainsley would then raise her child alone, but she later decides she has made a mistake and is whiling to marry, a habit Marian also dislikes. Clara, Marian, and Ainsley all had a different prospective on childbirth. Marian did not think it was a good idea to have a child, Ainsley wanted to have a child but without getting married (at the beginning), and Clara believed on having children after marriage. The type of clothing used in this novel plays a huge role of both feminism and societies pressures. For example, Marian tends to wear clothes as though they’re “a camouflage or protective coordination” (6). As for Ainsley, she often wears bright tight clothing, which stands out to the public eye. Before a party thrown by peter, we also see Marian feeling pressured to look good. She purchases a red dress knowing she will stand out; and lets Ainsley do her makeup. When she got to the party, Peter started treating her more as an object, “I love you especially in that red dress. You should wear red more often” (271). Peter than began to take pictures of Marian, “Could you just stand over there by the guns and lean back against the wall?” (272). She felt like a victim in her red dress when Peter’s camera became a symbol for a gun. All the guests at the party were also all insisting Marian should wear red more often. Another symbolic piece of clothing in this book was the grey wool Marian wore on the day Peter came to visit her after she ran away with Duncan; “A plain grey wool would be appropriate” (315). This shows the reader that Marian no longer cared about pleasing Peter. This novel presents the rethinking process of Marian's ideology and the beginning of choice to end up a "civilized" normal in the conformist sense. Unfortunately, Marian does not succeed.
According to Duncan, Marian is a "representative of modern youth, rebelling against all conventional” (Atwood 144). Consequently, a comparison to the refined urban setting gets scenery. Marian baked a woman shaped cake and insisted Peter ate it. “You’ve been trying to destroy me, haven’t you?” she said. Marian wanted to give the cake to Peter so he could destroy the cake and not her. Marian thought of herself as an “edible woman” which Peter and society devoured on. She excepted her past, and wanted to move on with her life in the direction she wanted. The book ends with Peter leaving, and Marian eating the cake. Marian finally got her appetite back; and eating the cake symbolized her destroying her past image, and societies standards. In sum, Atwood’s novel The Edible Woman is a narrative on a specific milestone in the life of Marian. It presents a clear depiction of the author's ideology and period as well as the protagonist. The author pays explicit attention to the difficulties women go through in the society. The key challenges affecting Marian and thus the author include gender relations, social class issues, loss of identity, and the adverse effects of civilization among others. At the end Marian overcome the limitations and gender roles set for women by not caring about societies expectations.
