"The Edible Woman" by Margaret Atwood

The main piece in the novel entitled The nonvenomous Woman by Margaret Atwood is consumerism. To consume, as defined by The Ameri copulate Heritage dictionary of the English Language is To fulfill in as food; eat or drink up. To divagate; use up. To purchase ( experts or services) for direct use or admitership. To waste; squander. To destroy totally; ravage. To absorb; engross. Consumerism is demonstrated by reveal the novel in a variety of ways, few more(prenominal) subtle than former(a)s. One of the more subtle, yet ab off ternary estate ways Atwood displays this theme is through piranha and predate workforcetal ikonry. Marian subconsciously actualizes calamus, her fiancé, as closely as certain other people that surround her as predators of mingled types, and often sees herself as the target area. She a care has an protrudesiders view of her roommate, Ainsley, preying on Leonard Slank in a strategic scheme to produce a child. The most taken for granted (predicate) of the predators who adopt their sights set on Marian is her familiar/fiancé, neb. While dine with Marian, Len and Ainsley, Peter tells a story ab bring out hunting varment and how he killed and gutted a rabbit. Marian creates an image in her intellect of Peter equanimous with a group of fri residues, those friends whom [she] had never met...their faces all the way megascopic in the sunlight that fell in shafts push see through the anonymous trees, splashed with blood, the mouths wrenched with laughter. [She] couldnt see the rabbit (The fodder Woman p. 75). She arrives herself crying and goes to the bathroom. Locked in the cubicle, she describes the toilet paper as crouched in there with [her], helpless and white and furry, waiting passively for the end (p. 75). She identifies with the rabbit in the story, and could not see it in her mind because, subconsciously, she is the rabbit. Later on the like even moroseing, Peter proposes to Marian. t ane at him, she sees his face strangely dim, his eye g! leaming ilk an animals in the beam from a motorcar headlight. His stare was intent, faintly ominous (p. 89). She sees him, subconsciously, as a predator waiting to pounce on her, safe she doesnt truly choose the connection in the midst of how she is seeing him at this twinkling and how he actually treats her. Marian also sees doctors and nurses as predators. She associates Peter with a doctor at times when theyre in merchant ship to make waterher. She lets Peter run his batch gently e genuinelyplace her skin...almost clinically.... It was when she would begin looking that she was on a doctors examination table that she would take hold of his hand to make him stop (p. 165). She allows him to go on until she ceaset get it eachmore. When they go out for a steak dinner, she watches him operate (p. 167) on his steak. She envisions the cow, alive, with the diagram of cuts drawn onto it. She thus begins to see her consume steak as a hunk of muscle. birth red (p. 167) . As Peter finishes his steak, she subconsciously relates to the cow universe devoured by Peter. She is joyless at his finishing the steak, still she doesnt actually know why. The concluding straw for Marian is at their involvement party. Peter asks her to stand over there by the guns (p.257) so that he can take her picture. The scenario creates an image of a hunter photographing his kill interchangeable a trophy. She feels, now more consciously, that if he takes the picture, shell be wintry there, in that moment, forever. He doesnt get the fortune to take the picture, moreover later gathers the crowd together for a group photo. She acts like an animal fleeing from its predator. She could not let him snaffle her this time. Once he pulled the trigger she would be stopped, fixed indissolubly in that gesture, that single stance, unavailing to move or change (p. 272). She associates the winning of the picture with the clout of a trigger and universe caught, cleanup spot h er real self and being left with the image of the fa! ir energise that Peter complimentss. She also realizes that she wont be able to escape the image that Peter projects onto her aft(prenominal) the marriage, so she decides to escape it right away. Marian also falls prey to others in this novel. She allows herself to be employ without even realizing it. At work, Marian is the oneness everyone goes to first to resolve up the undesirable tasks. As soon as she walks into the office, Mrs. Withers, the dietician, asks Marian to taste-test the tin rice puddings because none of the other ladies seem very sharp-set this morning (p. 17). When Mrs. Bogue, the head of the department, asks her to fill in for another(prenominal) interviewer because it is a yen weekend and [they] dont like to ask her (p. 25), she simply gives any protest. Minutes later, Lucy, a co-worker, asks her to write a earn of apology to an unsatisfied customer for her. Not only does Marian do it, she writes three versions. Marian is also used by Duncan, person s he met while doing the survey about Moose beer for Mrs. Bogue. He is stave offefaced of it and doesnt try to hide it. She enters his apartment and asks where they might sit around for the interview. He offers the options of the floor, kitchen or bedroom. She immediately says no to the bedroom, only if they end up there anyways. Halfway through the interview, he tells her that he never [drinks] the stuff (p.57), plainly he actually does and bonny didnt want to finish the survey. All he wanted was her company. encourage on in the novel, he calls her at work. She thinks that perhaps he [needs] her. [Needs] to smatter to her (p. 147), so she postpones her dinner plans with Peter in rank to go and give Duncan near laundry to do. Marian likes to feel needed, which is one of the reasons that she allows Duncan to use her. Later on in the novel, after Marian escapes from her engagement party, she goes to the laundromat to find him. She suggests that tonights the night (p. 274) and they go to a cheap motel. She was under the impressi! on that she was the first one hed been with, but when she asks him the abutting morning how it was, he replies just as good as usual (p. 293) He does, however, repay her in his feature self-centered way. He refuses to help her confront Peter, which allows her to take obligate and decide who she really is. It is not only men that can be predators in this novel; Ainsley is also a predator of sorts. She has this idea of being a single convey and wants to find just the right man to be the father.

She begins throng learning on Leonard Slank, an old friend of Marians that she thinks might be a potential candidate for the father. She hears that he likes younger women, so she goes to the bar/restaurant dressed in a like summer creation [Marian had] never seen before, a pink and pale blue gingham give way on white with a interference around the neck. Her whisker was data linkd behind her head with a pink enter and on one of her wrists she had a tinkly silver charm-bracelet. Her fundamental law was understated, her eyes thoroughly but not noticeably shadowed to make them twice as large and round and blue, and she had sacrificed her long oval fingernails, biting them approximately to the quick so that they had a jagged schoolgirlish fiber (p.72-73). It is obvious the amount of careful planning that went into this meeting. She pretends that Marian invited her, but Marian knows perfectly well that she has come to inspect Len, to see if he is good bountiful to be the father of her child. The next day, when asked what she was doing, Ainsley tells Marian that shes figuring out her strategy ( p. 92). She has decided that Len is the one, analyses! his constitution and plans her attack accordingly. Marian describes her as [bearing] a chilling simile to a general plotting a major campaign (p. 92). Ainsley plans to take over it seem accidental. A moment of passion. [Her] resistance overcome, swept off [her] feet and so forth (p. 92). The hale thing is very aforethought(ip) and structured; she even plots it on the calendar. Two months later, Ainsley tells Marian that it has to be tonight because if it isnt tonight...[shell] have to get another one (p. 130). It is obvious that there is no recognize in this relationship at all, Ainsley has just come across the perfect specimen and wants a child. Marian agrees to go out and see a cinema while Ainsley seduces Len and when she returns, a tie with green and blue stripe [is] hanging victoriously on the closed door of her own bedroom (p. 140), a indication that Ainsley had promised to leave if they ended up in her room. Ainsleys plan has worked, and she just has to wait and s ee if it pull up stakes all be expense it. Most of the predator and prey imagery is in Marians subconscious. She sees clearly what Ainsley is doing to Len, but doesnt realize that the same thing is happening to her. This imagery is a very telling way of unifying the novel. Each section is in some way, a predator or prey. The unfeigned personality of each portion is also revealed through the type they play. Marian starts out weak, then realizes that she must stand up for herself, Peter ends up without Marian because he likewisek advantage of her too much, and Ainsley ends up being pregnant, the goal of her scheme. This imagery underlines the major theme of consumerism because each character is somehow consumed by another unless they check off free, as did Marian. Bibliography Atwood, M. The Edible Woman. Toronto: The Canadian Publishers, 1969. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000 I f you want to get a full essay, order it on our websi! te: OrderCustomPaper.com

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