The Edible Woman

Authors who write fiction, drama, and poetry may make use of a "foil," which is a literary device employed to compare and contrast one thing to another. In this case, Duncan is a foil—most likely...

In the story "The Edible Woman" food represents Marian's self. Therefore, every instance that requires her to interact with people is a direct symbol of how society, the moment, or the future may...

The Edible Woman is a novel by Margaret Atwood first published in 1969. Atwood herself describes it as a "proto-feminist" novel. Although it is less fully realized in its treatment of gender...

The ending of the novel may seem dramatic and a bit weird, but it is actually quite simple: Marian is so extremely fed up with her situation at work, at home, in her relationship, with Peter, with...

I personally do not think there is any use of allegory in this story. Let us remember that allegories are stories where almost every character, action and event stands for both itself and some...

In Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, the main character Marian becomes unable to eat after she gets engaged to her boyfriend Peter. She had thought that their relationship was casual, as Peter...

The climax is defined as the section of the plot which represents the part of the story which is the most emotionally engaging after the rising action has raised the tension of the story to fever...

Marian, the main character in The Edible Woman, is a modern, progressive young woman in the 1970s, living with a roommate and holding down a job, while having a casual relationship with her...

Both the historical and philosophical context of "The Edible Woman" denote the struggle for self-acceptance and the eternal quest for who you really are. Marian's role as a woman has been...

In The Edible Woman Marian makes connections with food as a way to bond with society and with her boyfriend. Similarly, food is the essence of her job, since she has to prepare questionnaires for...

For Peter,Marian is a character that has to fit herself to his storyline. She has to act perfectly, with lots of femininity, and in a certain and specific way that does not ruin his own vision of...

Marian has a problem with her identity in that Peter is taking it away from her. She has let him suck her dry, although he complaints that such is what women do to men. However, in making her act,...

Though some might regard this as a negative criticism (which it's not intended to be), Atwood's language in The Edible Woman might often be called "unremarkable." For the most part, she gives us a...

Marian's dinner companions were likely to not have cared except for the curiosity of it all. The conversation regarding Alice in Wonderland seemed to be the fixed topic that drove everyone's...

In Vienne's world, she had always belonged to a family which tightens bonds among people using food, particularly chocolate. In Chocolate the town is unified, freed, and even lightened up thanks to...

In Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, the main character, Marian, becomes engaged to Peter, and, as a result, slowly becomes unable to eat any more. Food becomes disgusting to her, and she isn't...

By baking a woman-shaped cake and presenting it to her fiancé, Marian reveals her insights into the institution of marriage and, more broadly, into male–female relations in a patriarchal society....

The central theme of The Edible Woman is the consumption of the self and the lost of one's independence by the expectations of society. Marian is a progressive and independent woman who has found...

The pronoun shifts signify change in point of view, and also illustrate Marian's vascillating relation with reality and self.In the first section, the pronouns are in the first person. Marian is...

Undeniably, the common theme that these novels share is the search for self-identity in a male-dominated society, where the woman is relegated to specific and limiting roles: those of nurturers,...

While The Edible Woman has a female protagonist, it shares with The Great Gatsby and Hamlet (which both have male protagonists) a fundamental concern with issues of identity and authenticity....

I'm not really sure what you are needing here, as this is not a question, but I will take a stab at it. In the chapter of The Edible Woman to which you are referring, Marian has gone to a movie...

Margaret Atwood situates Marian, who is approaching marriage, among two female friends, Clara and Ainsley, who are at different points in their lives. Clara represents the most traditional female...

A bildungsroman is usually a coming-of-age story, in which the protagonist progresses toward maturity. The main character is sometimes introduced as a child and ages over the years. This type of...

I think the most obvious similarity between these two books is the constant references toward food. Reading either is a lot like watching an episode of "Sex in the City." The viewer/reader is...

Marian got that cake for Peter knowing deep inside it was more of an obligation as a girlfriend than out of genuine love for him. The cake is totally cliche: Pink, heart shaped, cute, and "probably...

In Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, the main character, Marian becomes slowly unable to eat after she gets engaged to her long-time boyfried Peter. First, she can't eat meat. For a while, she...

Assuming that your question is what message she is trying to convey onto Peter, the answer is that she is sending him signals that she is scared of being overpowered and consumed by Peter's...

Vienne's purpose with cooking, and her goal of crafting the perfect food for people are to unite society, to blend in, and to be accepted. She also does it out of a natural feeling of nurturing and...

Her inner arguments began with her visualization of meat as an edible object that reminded her how animals have to be shot in their heads, and then lose it, in order to be consumed by the world....

In an interview published in 1977 in the Malahat Review, Margaret Atwood described The Edible Woman as an anti-comedy, elaborating: In traditional comedy, boy meets girl, there are complications,...

The persistent motifs in Edible Woman include: Anxiety over commitment- Marian's eating disorder began after her boyfriend Peter proposed to her. This left her to believe that whatever was going to...

In Margaret Atwood’s novel, Leonard (Len) Slank is important as a counterpart to Ainsley Tewce. This young man and young woman represent the hypocrisy of people of both genders in their attitudes...

The reason why Marian rejects the beauty ideal that the red dress stands for is because she absolutely hates the role of women in society, namely, her own, in a monogamous relationship. She is a...

The general consensus among scholars is that The Lady Down Below is an allegorical figure representing traditional female values. The Lady Down Below, Marian and Ainsley's landlady, is deeply...

It was a very sad scene: Clara, swollen and depressed was again pregnant while her house was in shambles. The heat was disheartening, the grass was high, the kids were everywhere. Diapers...

Marian influences social and cultural norms in that she questions the very meaning of existing as a woman in a society of double standards. She introspectively disagrees with the role of Clara as a...

The themes in the story are very present today. Women have always been given a role to play in society: That of mothers, wives, nurturers. Yet, women have throughout the years fought those pre-set...

The main idea, or main theme, of Margaret Atwood's novel The Edible Woman is that social expectations are seldom in tandem with our freedom of choice. As a result, the clash between what we want to...

Aside from the major differences in characters and plot - I think what you need to examine most here is the difference in the feelings and emotions related to food in each novel. The protagonist in...

There are several instances in the story where food and cooking are used as triggers of communication and social connections. Since Marian finds it very hard to connect with Peter (but is expected...

The Edible Woman takes place in a variety of locations, many of which are stifling to Marian in some way, and none of which truly belong to her. Marian's apartment on the top floor of the house is...

The character of Ainsley Tewce in The Edible Woman has numerous internal conflicts. She greatly values the idea of independence, as befitting her feminist politics, but she also wants to be a...

Marian was undergoing a massive and very intense inner change. She was no longer acting in accordance to what she had decided to be the journey of her life. She was now a walking and talking...

My understanding of your question is to specify how cooking turtles reminded Marian about early Chritian martyrs. If that is your question, then the answer would be because the process of catching...