Patriarchy In Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman

Great Essays
From the very beginning, the world has been divided into two stereotypical groups namely the male and the female. This distinction is made on the basis of biological and social difference. Patriarchy, the dominance of male over the female, defines female identity where the female are considered to be logically, morally and culturally inferior to the male. In a patriarchal society, women are considered as “other”. They are treated as object of sexual pleasure, destined to give birth to child and engage themselves with household chores only. Patriarchy belittles the world of women by creating the four walls and advocates the notion that in a society there is only one entity, the male, that wields power, and it is this power which determines its …show more content…
The Edible Woman presents a very grim picture of the female characters. It shows what complexities the female characters are to suffer to survive in a patriarchal society and their tireless effort to establish their identity. The protagonist Marian MacAlpin is the embodiment of suffering and victimization in the hand of patriarchy. She fights for self-determination and her own female identity. Throughout the novel, she allows herself to be absorbed that is to be possessed by the patriarchal principles. The personality of Marian finds a development paralleled to the women’s trajectories described in Betty Friedan’s feminist classic The Feminine Mystique …show more content…
She chooses Len to fulfill her desire. She does not want to get married because there is a fear psychosis in her minds that if she finds a husband, she has to abide by patriarchal norms leaving behind all individual freedom and thereby she will lose female identity. Her decision to have a baby without getting married surprises Len because Ainsley’s decision goes beyond the patriarchal norms. Marian convinces Len, “a lot of people do. It’s fashionable these days, you know; and Ainsley reads a lot; she was particularly fond of anthropology at college, and she’s convinced that no woman has fulfilled her feminity unless she’s had a baby. But don’t worry, you won’t have to be involved any further. She doesn’t want a husband, just a baby.” (122) Len gets quite upset with the idea of Ainsley and laughs at Ainsley’s being educated by saying “for educating women. They get all kinds of ridiculing ideas.” (122) Len perhaps wanted to have only sex with Ainsley. He does not want to take responsibility of parenthood. Being unable to enjoy the body of Ainsley without being a responsible father, Len, out of frustration, makes patriarchal comment on Ainsley, “The little slut. Getting me into something like this.”

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