The Edible Woman, a 1969 novel that helped to establish Margaret Atwood as a prose writer of major significance, is the story of a young woman whose sane, structured, consumer-oriented world suddenly slips strangely out of focus. As a result, Marian McAlpin finds herself unable to eat: first meat, then eggs, and finally even vegetables become abhorrent to her.

In this novel, Atwood presents a look at the positions of men and women in a society through metaphorical human cannibalism.