Achieving Personal Identity in The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

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Achieving Personal Identity in The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

In the novel, The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood, the principal character Marian McAlpine establishes a well-integrated and balanced personality by rejecting the domination of social conventions, and conquering her own passivity. Through this process to self-awareness, Atwood uses imagery and symbolism to effectively parallel Marian’s journey and caricatures to portray the roles of the ‘consuming’ society.

As Marian stands at a pivotal point in her life, she examines and rejects the roles presented to her by society in order to achieve self-knowledge. She is 26 years old with her education behind her. She has her first job as well as, her boyfriend Peter Wollander, who is the last bachelor of his friends. Thus, Marian begins to contemplate her future and the type of woman she will become. Working at Seymour Surveys for four months, she is eligible and obliged to contribute a Pension Plan. Marian is forced to inspect her future at the company. Atwood uses the image of an ice cream sandwich to represent the structure of the company and it’s exploitation of women. Only men get the ‘upper crust’ positions on the top floor of the office building; machines and their operators form a kind of modern slave labour on the bottom floor. “The gooey layer in the middle”(p.12) is almost entirely made up of women who are housewives working for low pay in their spare time. Marian can only hope to become the head or assistant of her department like Mrs. Bogue, leading to a future as a retired spinster. This role is the first she rejects.

Another option is presented in the three “office virgins”, a trio of dyed blondes who represent society’s stereotype of a young wom...

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...ge of society and becoming a whole person. Atwood shows her integration by resuming the text in first person. She is back to where she began before her engagement to Peter. She is capable of thinking for herself and making choices accordingly. She has becomes self-aware.

Marian achieves self-knowledge by asserting against her passivity and rejecting Atwood’s caricatures of the roles of the underpaid worker, the ideal of femininity, the mother wife oppressed by her reproductive function, the over-aggressive predator, the lover alienated by her emotions and the manipulated caregiver. With her future now on her plate, her journey has come full circle back to her ‘so-called reality’ where she can carve her own destiny.

Bibliography:

Footnotes

Atwood, Margaret, The Edible Woman, Seal Books McClelland-Bantam, Inc., 1978, p12, 25, 87, 152, 255.

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