Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Edible Woman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gendered Expectations vs. Personal Identity
Consumerism and Consumption
Bodies, Pregnancy, and Food
Language, Meaning, and Alienation
Routine, Repetition, and Resistance
Summary
Analysis
Marian remembers the route to Duncan’s apartment perfectly, even though she has only been there once before. When she arrives, Duncan is disappointed that she has brought him so few items to work with. Sheepishly, Marian asks if she can watch him iron, and Duncan assents. Marian sits down on the bed, and Duncan turns on the ironing board.
Even though there is a stark contrast between Duncan’s lifestyle and Peter’s, both of them expect Marian to come to them—and never to show up empty-handed. Just as Ainsley and the lady down below echo the same feminine norms even in their differences, then, Duncan and Peter speak to the many different ways patriarchal standards can express themselves.
Themes
In between the hospital and her visit with Duncan, Marian ran into Ainsley at home. Ainsley was overjoyed about last night’s conquest with Len. She boasted that Len barely knows what happened, even apologizing to her for what he saw as his own trickery. When Marian mentioned the lady down below, Ainsley said she had gone out this morning, “a stroke of luck” that Marian sees as ominous.
Once again, Marian is caught between the landlady’s propriety and Ainsley’s wildness.
Themes
Marian watches Duncan iron, feeling a little left out by the intense focus he gives to the garments. To shake off this feeling, Marian goes to Duncan’s bathroom to comb her hair. The bathroom mirror has been entirely smashed. When Marian returns to Duncan’s room, Duncan explains that he smashed the mirror himself, “a perfectly understandable symbolic narcissistic gesture” that deeply concerned Trevor and Fish (whom Duncan calls his “understudy mothers”).
Duncan’s linguistic precision, a vestige of his graduate studies, is impressive—but it also makes it especially hard to tell when he is lying. Here, for example, Duncan’s fancy words obscure the truth of what happened with that mirror—was breaking it impulsive or thought-through, intended expressly to worry Trevor and Fish or incidentally annoying to them?
Themes
Before Marian can even express sympathy, however, Duncan changes his story, explaining that he really just smashed the mirror because he wanted to. Duncan burns himself on the iron, and Marian instinctively wants to go over to him, tending to the burn with baking soda or butter. Instead, she stays on the bed, listening with some frustration as Duncan drones on about his own feelings and laundry-related angst.
Marian’s ability to resist nursing Duncan signals that she is able to break free (a least a little bit) from some gendered expectations here, letting Duncan iron and tend to his own wounds while she rests. Even though Marian’s dynamic with Duncan shares some things with her relationship with Peter, then, it is also markedly different.
Themes
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Marian wonders again why Duncan likes ironing so much. He says that writing his term papers always gets him “tangled up”; ironing allows him to straighten things out and “get them flat.” Duncan then surprises Marian further, asking her if he can iron the blouse she is currently wearing. Shocked at herself, Marian takes the blouse off and slips into one of Duncan’s dressing gowns. As Duncan irons the shirt she just had on, Marian imagines that the iron is touching her skin.
Marian, too, feels that words are always getting “tangled up,” as is evident in the novel’s modernist willingness to play with narration and structure. But with Duncan, rather than feeling like her body is a source of further confusion, Marian starts to feel almost electrified, coming back into her own skin (as she imagines the iron on her flesh).
Themes
Duncan finishes ironing and crawls into bed beside Marian. He closes his eyes, frustrated with the endless repetition of life—everyone is arguing about the same books or ironing clothes and then wearing them and then ironing them again. “Production-consumption,” Duncan sighs, and then he starts reflecting on his hometown. Duncan grew up in a mining town without any vegetation, and he finds the lack of greenery there comforting.
Duncan’s argument here highlights one of the central anxieties of the novel: every moment of life, from the most expansive intellectual debate to the most mundane ironing routine, can be categorized as either “production” or “consumption.” And because Duncan believes that everything is produced only to be consumed and then produced again, it is hard for him to find meaning in the endless cycle.
Themes
Duncan opens his eyes, taking in the image of Marian in the dressing gown. “You look sort of like me in that,” he muses. With that, Duncan pulls Marian into himself, wrapping her in his surprisingly strong arms. Marian is shaken by the fact that Duncan has a body, just like other people; she wonders if he means to caress her, or if he is really just trying to caress a version of himself. Marian tells Duncan she is engaged. Duncan just shrugs—“that’s your problem, then.”
Though the narrative emphasizes that Marian feels some measure of ease with Duncan, it is clear that Duncan is not deeply invested in caring for Marian; instead, he prioritizes his own thoughts, desires, and circumstances, seeking self-fulfillment through Marian rather than seeking a true partner.
Themes
Duncan kisses Marian on the nose, assuring her that their tryst does not mean anything to him (“you’re just another substitute for the laundromat”). Marian knows she should be offended by this, but she finds herself strangely at ease. At that moment, Trevor and Fish come in, and Duncan pretends as if he and Marian were playing chess, not wanting his surrogate parents to know that Marian is “corrupting” him.
In telling Marian that she is a “substitute” for comfort he finds at the laundromat, Duncan is honest with Marian that he sees her as a way to pass time. Perhaps this is comforting to Marian (rather than upsetting or offensive) because it feels more honest—Peter, too, is using her for convenience and propriety, but unlike Duncan, he labels this similar arrangement as love.
Themes
