The Edible Woman
The Self of women, of Marian Mc Alpin's time - the 1960's, is reduced to purchasable goods. The beauty of women is celebrated in terms of the riches that are comparable to her: her eyes are blue sapphires; her brow is ivory; and her lips are ruby. She is not only available for sale, but also for consumption: her skin is white as milk; her lips are sweet as honey. This consumer emphasis in the novel peaks when Marian transmutes into the truest feminine stereotype by donning a flashy red dress and painting her face with many layers of cosmetics. She has done this at her fiance, Peter's request to dress better than usual at his party that night. Marian begins to fear that this new guise is a change that Peter wants to make permanent. Women in the sixties were only just emerging from their self-accepted role in the house, and men had not yet realised that women were their equals. This party is the breaking point for Marian. She rebels against what she believes to be Peter's image of the female stereotype with a cleansing ritual in which she portrays herself as edible. Marian's impression is that Peter would delight in her being edible because destroying and consuming her would be faster and easier for him. Marian Mc Alpin's e
xperience is an example of what women have to fight against and deal with in a male-dominated society that women perpetuate by continuing to submit to the female stereotype. The novel concentrates mainly on consumerism, feminism, stereotyping and rebellion. Marian may seem at first to be an extraordinary woman, a rare case, but in fact, she exemplifies the majority of women in that time. Peter also sees the engagement as a purchase. "He sounded as though he had just bought a shiny new car."(96) Marian plays to Peter's notion, she says, "I gave him a tender chrome-plated smile; that is, I meant the smile to express tenderness, but my mouth felt stiff and dry and somehow expensive."(96) As Marian proceeds more and more with this charade, the less she can consume. Finally, at the end of the novel after Peter's final party, she cannot eat anything at all. Marian has reached the point where she must do something about her condition. She realises that her aversion to food was because of her victimisation and she blames Peter for this. However, though she believes that Peter had been trying to assimilate her, she also is guilty of trying to absorb him. She had said "I could feel the stirrings of the proprietary instinct. So this object, then, belonged to me."(97) Marian forgot that she had made a willing entrance into a society of male sovereignty. Her body's refusal to eat was a direct result of her rejection of the role as a consumer - first as a consumer of food, then as a member of consumer society.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Ainsley Marian's, Mc Alpin's, Peter Marian, Marian Peter's, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Atwood's, Peter You've, Duncan Marian, Whenever Marian, consumer society, role consumer, images food, , marian mc alpin's, red dress, describes meals, food marian's, control life, food victim, female stereotype, victim consumer society, trying assimilate,
Approximate Word count = 2139
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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