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 hasn’t eaten anything all day, so she swallows a vitamin pill and checks the fridge. Unfortunately, neither Marian nor Ainsley has cleaned in weeks, so the rotten smell in the fridge is only getting worse—and the dirty dishes are piling up. For a moment, Marian feels compelled to clean, but she holds herself back. “Perhaps,” she thinks, “the mold had as much right to life as she had.”
On a character level, it is important to note that the lack of nutrients Marian is consuming likely make all of her thoughts less clear (which is reflected in the frightening, overwhelming way she now views even everyday events like cleaning). Marian’s ability to recognize herself in eggs and steak now extends further, as she starts identifying with even the creeping mold in her fridge.
Themes
Marian decides to take a bath. As Marian cleans herself, she stares at her distorted reflection in the metal faucet, which duplicates and stretches her face. Then, Marian hears footsteps outside the bathroom door, which means the lady down below is asking to be let in. In a panic, Marian gets out of the tub, slides her engagement ring back onto her finger, and heads upstairs. The two dolls she has been meaning to get rid of are still there, starting at her almost accusingly.
This moment in the bathtub echoes Marian’s earlier scene with Peter when they slept together in the tub. Then and now, Marian feels herself disappearing, sinking under the water or distorting on the metal of the faucet. This sense of dissociation is then echoed by the reappearance of the dolls, who represent how Marian feels commodified and deadened by the pressures of femininity.
Themes
Not knowing what else to do, Marian calls Duncan and begs him to come to Peter’s party tonight, even inviting Trevor and Fish. The idea of having her own friends at the party calms Marian, so she calls Clara and Joe and the “office virgins” and asks them to come, too. Marian even invites Ainsley, though she purposefully does not call Leonard Slank.
It is clearly illogical for Marian to invite Duncan to this party—after all, what would Peter do if he found out about their relationship? But Marian is so desperate for any sense of control (and so undernourished) that the potential disaster of these two men meeting barely occurs to her.
Themes
Marian then starts to get dressed, sliding into a new girdle. When Ainsley helps Marian zip into her girdle, she notes that all of Marian’s jewelry and makeup will be too dowdy for this new, more glamorous look. So before Marian can even assent, Ainsley gets to work as stylist and make-up artist, doing Marian’s eyes with thick eyeshadow and giving Marian a giant pair of earrings to wear. By the time Ainsley is done, Marian no longer recognizes herself.
The girdle ads that Marian sees on the bus to work have long symbolized the overlap between patriarchal expectations and consumerist obsessions. Now, as Ainsley zips Marian into one of the (quite literally) restraining garments, Marian feels that her alienation from herself is complete, replaced only by this ideal of femininity—one built on products and unrealistic, uncomfortable beauty standards.
Themes
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Just then, the lady down below appears in the doorway, shocked at Marian’s scandalous dress and at Ainsley’s half-finished hairdo. In a level voice, the lady announces that she is evicting “Miss Tewce” from her home—not only because of Len’s recent outburst, but because of the drinking and the incident when Len slept over. Ainsley shoots back that the lady down below is a “hypocrite,” only concerned with what her neighbors might say. Ainsley also informs the lady down below that she is going to have a child.
Though the lady down below disapproves of Marian’s flashy appearance and Ainsley’s reckless behavior with Len, the domestic life this landlady claims to preserve is paradoxically the very same one that both Ainsley and Marian are, in their own ways, pursuing.
Themes
The lady down below leaves, horrified at the image of Ainsley as a mother. Moments later, Marian hears the doorbell ring: Peter has arrived. As Marian puts on her shoes, Ainsley fills in her eyebrows with artistic precision. Before Marian heads out the door, she swallows one more vitamin pill, noticing that it looks like a “brown seed.” Unhappily, Marian wonders what kind of things get ground up to make these pills.
Marian feels disturbed by wearing all this makeup and shapewear—but Ainsley’s easy precision with her eyebrow pencil reminds readers how much some people change themselves drastically every day. The comparison of the pill to a “brown seed” suggests that even these vitamins, Marian’s last source of sustenance, are beginning to seem alive—and therefore cruel—for Marian to consume.
Themes
