FRQ 3

In the book The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood employs symbols in order to convey the detachment of reality and feminist ideas, ultimately illustrating societal pressures on a woman can be dangerous. 

Margaret Atwood uses symbols to convey the detachment of reality. Margaret uses food as a symbol, the main character, Marian,  suddenly stops eating food in the novel due to the separation of herself and her body. All food represents her feeling of being consumed due to her roles as a woman stressing her out. Instead of her consuming societal pressures, she begins to be consumed herself. Because of how society foresees a woman, it doesn’t begin to bother her at first until Marian gets engaged, consequently she begins to be consumed by the pressures of being a good wife to her husband and begins to dissociate from all food together and starve, therefore societal pressures for women are rigid. 

Margaret continues on with the symbolic food to convey the detachment of reality. As she dissociates from reality, a lot of things happen to her. She first imagines different fates for all of the animals she consumes, and starts with not being able to eat beef. Next she can’t eat chickens, then eggs, and then she can’t even eat vegetables. Then she can’t eat anything at all. Her detachment from eating represents how far gone she becomes due to her life falling apart. They both go hand in hand as they both spiral down. Because of societal pressures Marian turns anemic and begins to eat less and less, since her faltering hunger represents how detached she becomes until she’s so lost that she can’t eat anything. Thus societal pressures on a woman are rough. 

Continuing on, Margaret Atwood's symbols start to represent feminist ideas. 

Margaret Atwood uses symbols to represent feminist ideas. Food still holds great significance other than Marian's dissociation from reality. Her role as a woman in society can be represented by food. Another reason why she stops eating is due to her connection with men. Her marriage with her husband is too stressful and she detaches more and more from the idea of being a wife and a woman. Because of her stressful marriage, her ideals of being a wife are faint, consequently, her starvation represents that slipping away from her roles too, therefore, societal norms for a woman are bad. 

Atwood uses symbols to represent feminist. At the end of the book, Marian bakes a cake, but she won’t eat it because she can’t eat anything. This cake represents herself as a woman, Marian is sick of the world and her husband consuming her, so she tests whether her husband will eat it. The husband does eat it, saying it was delicious as he licks his lips. Because of what the cake represents she tests her husband, since he did eat it this confirms her suspicions of how society feels about women, therefore societal pressures are malicious for women