The Edible Woman (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Margaret Atwood
- First Published: 1969
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Satire
- Time of Work: The mid-twentieth century
- Setting: A major city in Canada, probably Toronto
- Principal Characters: Marian MacAlpin, Ainsley Tewce, Peter, Duncan, Clara Bates, Len Slank, Trevor, The lady down stairs
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism, Satire
- Subjects: Values, 1960’s, Self-discovery, Gender roles, Literature, Marriage, Friendship, Pregnancy, Feminism, Women’s issues, Lawyers, Canada or Canadians, Food, Human behavior, Lifestyles, Conformity, Bohemianism, Women’s movement, Parties, Office employees, Eating disorders, Fertility
- Locales: Toronto, Canada
Form and Content
The Edible Woman, the premier work of fiction by noted Canadian poet Margaret Atwood, is a forerunner of much of the feminist literature that would follow the theme of woman in search of individual identity and worthwhile meaning in her life. The work is divided into three distinct sections, separated by the literary device of alternating narrative point of view. Although the narrator does not change, the voice changes as her perspective of herself alters. Section 1 employs first-person, though unreliable, narration, in section 2 the narrator refers to...
[The entire page is 2185 words long]
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