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 and Ainsley meet to walk to Clara’s, trudging uphill through the heat. Since having a family, Clara has moved north—which she sees as a kind of “exile”—to the suburbs and away from the university. When Marian and Ainsley arrive, Clara’s husband Joe lets them in; immediately, they must navigate a maze of baby toys and bottles on the floor.
Clara is now introduced as yet another model of womanhood, one in which the picture-perfect image of marriage has given way to the chaos and labor of child-rearing. Clara’s geographic “exile” from the university also holds symbolic weight, as it suggests that she has similarly been “exiled” from the life of the mind that college represents.
Themes
Clara is now pregnant for the third time, and she looks exhausted. Marian knows Clara is hoping for some kind of “rescue.” But it’s hard to talk over the baby, who is crying and gurgling. Finally, Ainsley offers to take the child, surprising Marian. As Ainsley holds the baby, Marian reflects that both Ainsley and the child have big, round, blue eyes and pink mouths.
Marian often returns to Ainsley’s big blue eyes, which give her friend a childlike naivete very different from her real personality. Ainsley’s desire to look youthful might also speak to the way that young women see infantilizing themselves as a way to attract other people.
Themes
Clara asks if Marian is still seeing Peter, and Ainsley resentfully informs Clara that they are indeed still together. Clara then tells Marian that Len Slank, a friend of theirs from college, has recently returned to town from England. Despite having a good job in TV, Len seems to have come back in a hurry, likely because of some trouble with a girl. They are interrupted when the baby pees on Ainsley.
The motives for Ainsley’s resentment of Peter are never quite clear—is she envious of Marian for having a boyfriend, or is she envious of Peter for taking up so much of Marian’s time and attention? The baby’s constant interruptions underscore just how hard it is for Clara to have any vestiges of the more carefree life she had before she became a mom.
Themes
Joe finishes cooking dinner, while Clara’s toddler-aged son proudly shows his mom that he has hidden some of his feces in the yard. After dinner, Joe serves a dessert that Marian recognizes—the canned rice puddings from the survey at work (“it saves a lot of time,” Clara explains defensively). As they eat, Ainsley asks questions about Len Slank, though Joe hurriedly warns her away from him.
In the office, the canned rice pudding—artificial in the name of efficiency—added to Marian’s sense of being trapped. Now, Clara’s life, in which every moment of free time feels like a rare gift, is marked by this same pre-packaged product. Finally, Ainsley’s interest in Len foreshadows her dogged pursuit of him later on.
Themes
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After dinner, Joe does the dishes while Marian wonders what to say to Clara. They have known each other since high school, when thin, blonde Clara was the ideal of “perfume-advertisement femininity.” In college, Clara met Joe Bates, a graduate student seven years her senior. They’d fallen deeply in love and gotten married, but the pregnancies had been unplanned; with each new child, Marian reflects that Clara’s “own body seemed to be going beyond her.” As Marian leaves, Joe urges her to come back soon, since Clara has “so few people she can really talk to.”
In this important passage, Marian explicitly positions gender roles (“perfume”-like femininity) as something purchased and consumed (“advertisements”). Clara’s lifestyle choices seem almost out of her control, prescribed by advertisements and societal expectations rather than her own thoughts and desires. And worse still, Marian’s sense that Clara’s body is “going beyond her” suggests that even one’s own flesh-and-blood self can be a source of betrayal, as the conversations Clara once treasured are replaced by her all-consuming experience of parenthood.
Themes
