Of Female and Food: The Feminine Identification in Margaret Atwood''s The Edible Woman and Lady Oracle

• Main Authors: YU-SHAN LEE, 李郁珊
• Other Authors: Tee Kim Tong
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3s3gxn

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 外國語文學系研究所 === 106 === With the overt motif of food and eating in Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman (1969) and Lady Oracle (1976), it is hard not to probe into the significant implications from the text. Using this perspective, the proceeding thesis explores the relationship between female and food; arguing food connects with the social construction of women’s roles. Nancy Chodorow’s object-relations theory questions whether maternity for women is biological or psychological. Owing to the biological fact that female bodies have the capacity to reproduce and provide nourishment for infants, feeding and mothering become women’s responsibilities. In Chapter One, I begin to identify the food-related imagery in The Edible Woman and Lady Oracle. I examine society’s expectations in terms of femininity for the female characters in the fiction, demonstrating women’s inferior identity. In Chapter Two, I decipher the food metaphors; portraying the tangible inequality between males and females in both the public and domestic spheres in The Edible Woman. I use Chodorow’s observations on gender role acquisition and identification to analyze Marian McAlpin’s (the heroine) level of compliance and her assumption of marriage and motherhood. To prove Marian’s resistance, I examine her anorexic appetite and the woman-shaped cake. Chapter Three concerns the other heroine, Joan Foster, and her “bulimarexic” appetite and the relationship with her mother in Lady Oracle. Applying Chodorow’s perspectives demonstrates that forced feminine identification creates ambivalence in motherhood for Joan’s mother. This not only affects the quality of parenting but also causes an unusual pattern in Joan’s diet.