Marian McAlpin
Marian McAlpin is a recent college graduate and the narrator of The Edible Woman. When the novel begins, Marian is content with her conventional life: she cleans the house with her roommate Ainsley…
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Duncan/The Pale Man
Duncan (whom Marian initially only identifies as a strange, pale man) is an English PhD student. He is also Trevor and Fish’s third roommate and Marian’s eventual lover. Duncan is the antithesis of the…
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Peter Wollander
Peter Wollander is Marian’s boyfriend and eventual fiancé. Peter is a lawyer, and he is widely respected for his conventional good looks and responsible lifestyle. Ainsley often lightly mocks Peter for surrounding himself with “soap…
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Ainsley Tewce
Ainsley Tewce (condescendingly called “Miss Tewce” by the lady down below) is Marian’s roommate and friend. Unlike Marian, Ainsley is chaotic, constantly staying out late, leaving her room messy, and telling outrageous stories…
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Leonard Slank
Leonard Slank is one of Clara and Marian’s best friends from college. When the novel begins, Len has recently returned to Toronto from London, where he was working in television production. Len is known…
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Clara Bates
Clara Bates is Joe Bates’s wife and Marian’s best friend from high school and college. In high school, thin, blonde Clara was admired for her idyllic, “perfume-advertisement femininity.” In college, Clara excelled academically…
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Joe Bates
Joe Bates is Clara’s husband and the father of her children. Joe and Clara met when he was a graduate student and she was an undergrad. Joe’s tender “worship” of Clara impressed Marian…
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Fischer Smythe (Fish)
Fischer Smythe (known only as “Fish” for most of the novel) is one of Duncan’s roommates and a PhD student in the English department where Duncan studies. Fish is portrayed as rather clueless and…
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The Lady Down Below
The lady down below is what Marian and Ainsley call their landlady; her real name is never revealed. Unlike Marian and Ainsley, who are college graduates interested in more modern models of womanhood, the lady…
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Trevor
Trevor is one of Duncan’s roommates and a fellow English PhD student at Duncan’s university. Trevor comes from a wealthy family known for manufacturing coconut cookies, though he does not like advertising this ritzy…
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Lucy
Lucy, one of the so-called “office virgins” at Seymour Surveys, has a glamorous public relations job. Unlike her friends Millie and Emmy, Lucy is “platinum and elegantly coiffured.” Though she, too, is single, Lucy…
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Millie
Millie is Mrs. Bogue’s assistant and one of the “office virgins” at Marian’s work. Millie is athletic and Australian, and she seems less nervous than her friends Lucy and Emmy. However, like the…
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Emmy
Emmy is the typist for Seymour Surveys and one of the “office virgins” (as Ainsley calls them) whom Marian works with. Emmy is depicted as being sickly; her skin is always flaking off, she is…
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Mrs. Bogue
Mrs. Bogue is Marian’s boss at Seymour Surveys and the head of the questionnaire department. Mrs. Bogue is always cheerful, though Marian senses some artificiality in Mrs. Bogue’s demeanor, especially because Mrs. Bogue seems…
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The Underwear Man
The so-called “Underwear Man” is a prank caller who asks housewives inappropriate questions about their lingerie, using the Seymour Surveys company name to gain access to them. The Underwear Man is known to be polite…
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Trigger
Trigger is Peter’s best friend from college, and the last of Peter’s old friends to get married. When Trigger does get married, Peter struggles with the idea that his bachelor days are over. Marian…
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Minor Characters
Mrs. Grot
Mrs. Grot is the head of accounting at Seymour Surveys. Mrs. Grot pressures Marian to pay money to the company’s pension plan, though Marian chafes against this expectation. Privately, Marian thinks that Mrs. Grot takes pleasure in deducting various fees from her colleagues’ paychecks.
Mrs. Withers
Mrs. Withers is the in-house dietician at Seymour Surveys. She often calls on Marian and some of the other female employees to taste-test their clients’ products, like an unappetizing selection of canned rice puddings.
