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www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 20. Ibid, pp. 17. 21. Ibid, pp. 19. 22. Ibid, pp. 21. 23. Karlekar, Malavika. Voices From Within: Early Personal Narratives of Bengali Women. Oxford University Press (1993), pp. 6. 24. Ibid, pp. 27. 25. Ibid, pp. 44. 26. Ibid, pp. 46. 27. Benarja Krishna Mohan, ‘Reform, Civil and Social’ in Awakening in Bengal. pp. 6, 190- 191. 28. Ibid, pp. 50. 29. Karlekar, Malavika. Voices From Within: Early Personal Narratives of Bengali Women. Oxford University Press (1993), pp. 2. 30. Ibid, pp. 50. 31. Ibid, pp. 51. 32. Ibid, pp. 51. 33. Ibid, pp. 61. 34. Chaudhurani, Hemantkumari. Women Education in Colonial India. Article 35. Ibid, pp. 67. 36. Ibid, pp. 68. 37. Ibid, pp. 160. . Vol. II. Issue. III 232 September 2011 9
www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 Metaphor of Body in Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman Shamsoddin Royanian & Zeinab Yazdani The Edible Woman was written in the 1960s, when the society was dominated by men. In this period of time, post-war feminist movements were trying to conquer the patriarchal model of family and femininity and to distance themselves from the position of consumers. Traditional gender roles such as mother, wife, housekeeper, or lover were improper for modern women. They looked for some options, but the only one which was delivered by the social system was a position of a worker stuck in a dead-end job. In the absence of any realistic possibilities to change their condition, women uttered their objections, frailty, and anxiety through their outlook toward food and, as a result, through their bodies. This condition led to the rise of feelings of frustration, anger, and unfulfilment among feminists. The novel's publication coincided with the rise of the women's movement in North America, but it is described by Atwood as "protofeminist" because it was written in 1965 and thus anticipated feminism by several years. The female protagonist, Marian MacAlpin struggles between the role that society has imposed upon her and her personal definition of self; and food becomes the symbol of that struggle and her eventual rebellion. Margaret Atwood employs an eating disorder in her novel The Edible Woman as a metaphor of a revolt and protest. Atwood in an interview says: It’s a human activity that has all kinds of symbolic connotations depending on the society and the level of society. In other words ,what you eat varies from place to place, how we feel about what we eat varies from place to place, how we feel about what we eat varies from individual as well as from place to place. If you think of food as coming in various categories: sacred food, ceremonial food, everyday food and things that are not to be eaten ,forbidden food, dirty food, if you like- for the anorexic ,all food is dirty food. (lyons 228) The main protagonist of the novel, Marian MacAlpin is a young, triumphant woman, working in market research. Her job, private life, and social relations seem to be idealistic, but when she finds out her boyfriend’s consumer nature during a talk in the restaurant, she can’t eat. Marian’s initial lack of desire for food finally leads to an eating disorder, very similar to anorexia nervosa, which is her body’s response to the society’s effort of imposing its policy on the heroine. Moreover, the three parts of the novel propose the course of this eating disorder. Background causes are shown in part one, Part Two indicates the mind/body split and Part Three reflects the spontaneous declaration of the problem. In the essay, "Reconstructing Margaret Atwood's Protagonists," Patricia Goldblatt states that "Atwood creates situations in which women, burdened by the rules and inequalities of their societies, discover that they must reconstruct braver, self-reliant personae in order to survive." At the end of The Edible Woman, Marian partially reconstructs that new persona or concept of self through a renewed relationship to food. Non-eating in The Edible Woman is mainly a symbol of the Vol. II. Issue. III 233 September 2011
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