The Edible Woman

At Peter’s apartment, Marian begins to regret inviting Duncan and his roommates to the party, as she doesn’t want him meeting Peter. Marian sees her reflection in the mirror; because of her outfit, new hair, and Ainsley’s makeup she struggles to recognize herself. She questions what allows a person’s identity to remain constant: “What was it that lay beneath the surface these pieces were floating on, holding them all together?” (251). Peter is excited for the party, as it will be the first one he and Marian are officially throwing together as an engaged couple. Peter takes out his camera to take a photograph of Marian, but Marian’s “body had frozen, gone rigid” (254). She experiences a panic attack while Peter attempts to capture her image. Ultimately, he gives up, and Marian is able to move again when Peter takes the camera out of the room.

The three office virgins are the first to arrive at the party; Marian expects that they will use the party as a way to meet potential husbands. Clara and Joe arrive soon after, and they bring a drunk and disorientated Len Slank with them. While Clara socializes with the wives of Peter’s friends, Joe and Marian discuss Clara’s personality. Joe believes that Clara’s undergraduate education makes her unsatisfied with life as a stay-at-home mother and that the core of her personality has been “invaded” through marriage: “Her feminine role and her core are really in opposition” (259). He suggests that women shouldn’t attend college at all, as it gives them insight into an academic and intellectual life that does not coincide with their expected gender roles in society. Marian catches Lucy flirting with Peter in his bedroom but is unfazed.

Marian opens the door for Ainsley then Duncan and his roommates. Duncan will not enter the apartment with the others, so they talk in the hallway. He criticizes her for dressing unlike herself. Duncan agrees that he cannot meet Peter; if he did, “’one of us would be sure to evaporate’” (263). Duncan leaves for stress relief at the laundromat. Though Marian wants to follow him, she returns to the party.

Ainsley smashes her glass on the floor to draw the party’s attention, then she announces that she and Len are having a baby. The other guests are briefly scandalized. Len retaliates by pouring his beer over Ainsley’s head as a “baptism” for their unborn baby. The scene is quickly forgotten by the other guests as they return to drinking and talking. Duncan’s roommate Fish helps Ainsley by offering her his sweater to dry off with.

Several hours later, Marian is drunk. She repeats to herself “I’m coping, I’m coping” (266) though she is obsessed with the idea of Peter’s true identity. She watches Peter interact with the other guests and realizes that he is absolutely ordinary; he is in the process of turning into a predictable middle-class man and that Marian herself “evoked him” by agreeing to the marriage.

Marian becomes frightened of Peter’s camera again as he takes photos of the party guests; she hides in his bedroom where she realizes that while Peter’s identity will grow to fit the mold of his class and gender expectations, she “would always look exactly like this” (269) if she goes through with the marriage. Marian links this fear for her identity with Peter’s photography, as she does not want him to “capture” her in a single pose. When Peter collects the guests for a group photo, Marian sneaks out of the apartment to find Duncan.

Marian finds Duncan at the laundromat. She announces that she will have sex with him, but it has to be that night because she fears if she waits, she will lose her resolve. Duncan has enough money with him to buy them a cheap room, so they walk in the cold toward a section of the city known for its discrete hotels. They rent a room. Duncan is nervous and uncertain how to act; Marian takes the lead and has them undress, but Duncan says she must take off her makeup. Though they try to have sex, Duncan stops them after half an hour in disappointment, claiming that he “must be incorruptible” (279). Marian is frightened, panicked, and unable to physically move either toward or away from Duncan. Then he soothes her and they spend the night in the hotel.

The next morning, Duncan and Marian go to a cafe nearby and use the rest of Duncan’s money to buy breakfast. As Marian is unable to eat anything off the menu, Duncan is the only one who eats. She watches him, realizing that something has changed in his life but that she herself has lost much of the decisive energy she had the night before: “for her nothing was permanent or finished” (283). After Duncan finishes eating, she asks him to stay with her because she feels like she can’t go back home. They go for a walk at a nearby ravine so Marian can put off returning to her apartment a bit longer. Marian asks him whether he enjoyed last night, to which Duncan responds, “It was fine; just as good as usual” (290) revealing that he wasn’t a virgin as Marian had assumed. Marian becomes desperate again and searches for a way to keep Duncan’s company in her life, coming to the realization that what she truly wants is a sense of safety. Duncan, however, denies going any further with her and shows her the way out of the ravine so he can lay in the snow alone.

Marian returns to her apartment. Peter calls, angry that she disappeared from the party and didn’t contact him at all the previous night. Marian evades his questions about where she was by inviting him over for tea later that day so they can talk. Then, she goes to the supermarket and buys ingredients for a cake. Marian bakes a cake and decorates it to be a woman. She has Peter sit down, presents the cake to him, then accuses him of trying to “assimilate” her into the role of wife and future mother. Peter is first confused then frightened by Marian’s actions and then leaves without a further word to Marian.

Marian begins eating the cake herself as she finds that her body does not want to reject it. Ainsley returns home with Duncan’s roommate Fish accompanying her; the two are now committed to each other and Ainsley’s unborn baby. When Ainsley sees Marian eating a cake in the shape of a woman, she accuses Marian of rejecting her own femininity, but Marian insists that it is only a cake.

Marian cleans the apartment after several months of neither she nor Ainsley tending to it. Duncan calls looking for Fish; he resents his roommate for marrying Ainsley and no longer taking care of him. As he speaks, Marian is relieved to find herself disinterested in his problems, as she is “thinking of herself in the first person singular again” (306) and no longer feels her identity to be threatened since breaking off her engagement to Peter. Duncan comes to Marian’s apartment for tea and continues complaining about how he feels abandoned by Fish. Though Marian listens, she finds herself thinking about Len Slank, who she has learned is staying with Clara and Joe. Len has spent his time sleeping in her toddler son’s room and playing with her son’s toys; he is in too much emotional turmoil from his situation with Ainsley to work or engage in adult life.

Marian announces proudly to Duncan that she ate a steak for lunch. Her appetite has returned to normal after eating the woman-shaped cake and thereby ending her engagement to Peter. She offers the rest of the cake to Duncan, who eats it all quietly then thanks her.