The Edible Woman characters

Appears from the start

A young university graduate working for a Toronto consumer-research firm. She writes survey reports but occupies a position with little prospect of advancement. Observant and outwardly accommodating, she is uneasy about the futures represented by the married and unmarried women around her.

Appears from the start

Marian's lively roommate, who treats social conventions as problems to analyze and manipulate. At the opening she has decided that she wants a child without a husband and is considering how to choose a father who will not claim a lasting place in her life.

Appears from the start

Marian's boyfriend, a young lawyer who values masculine independence and carefully maintained order. He is sociable and successful, but he resists the domestic expectations attached to marriage and becomes unsettled when his friends begin accepting them.

First appears in chapter 2

One of Marian's closest friends from university, now married to Joe and caring for several small children. Repeated pregnancies and domestic disorder have altered her body and daily life, making her household one possible future against which Marian measures her own choices.

First appears in chapter 2

Clara's husband, a former student who has assumed much of the practical work of their growing household. He is protective of Clara and skeptical about Ainsley's theories concerning motherhood and the family.

First appears in chapter 6

An underfed, evasive graduate student whom Marian meets in a laundromat. He lives with two other students, avoids ordinary schedules, and responds to questions with unsettling detachment. His refusal of conventional ambition makes him both an escape from Peter's world and another person difficult to reach.

First appears in chapter 6

An older acquaintance of Marian, Peter, and their university friends. Known for his stories about sexual freedom and his resistance to settled domestic life, he appears to Ainsley to be a suitable father for the child she intends to raise alone.

Appears from the start

The manager of Marian's department at Seymour Surveys. As a married professional woman exercising limited authority inside a male-directed company, she represents a compromise between career and domestic expectations rather than a clear path of advancement.

Appears from the start

One of the unmarried office women Marian calls the office virgins. Along with Lucy and Millie, she follows workplace gossip, rituals, and expectations about finding a husband, providing a chorus of conventional judgments around Marian's changing situation.

Appears from the start

One of Marian's unmarried colleagues at Seymour Surveys. She shares the office's close attention to appearance, dating, and marriage, and treats Marian's engagement as an event to be evaluated through those expectations.

Appears from the start

One of the three unmarried women in Marian's department. Her working life is bounded by the same narrow hierarchy and social assumptions that lead Marian to wonder what kinds of adulthood the company makes available to women.

First appears in chapter 18

One of Duncan's graduate-student roommates. He studies literature, discusses relationships in theoretical terms, and has a stronger interest than Duncan in stable domestic arrangements and the social meaning of family life.