The Edible Woman

As a woman writer Atwood has always been intensely aware of the significance of the female body, in terms both of a woman’s sense of her own identity and of the cultural meanings that are coded into representations of female bodies:

The body as a concept has always been a concern of mine. It’s there in

Surfacing

as well. I think that people very much experience themselves through their bodies and through concepts of the body which get applied to their own bodies. Which they pick up from their culture and apply to their own bodies. It’s also my concern in

Lady Oracle

and it’s even there in

The Edible Woman

. (

Conversations

, p. 187)