Summary Of The Innocent Woman By Marian Mcalpin

THE EDIBLE WOMAN CHAPTERS 1 – 4 CHARACTERS Marian McAlpin: the protagonist. Marian copes with her roommate Ainsley's radical ideas. Marian copes with Peter's moods, adjusting her emotions around his. She copes with a boring job, a snoopy landlady, a sloppy apartment. Ainsley Tewce: Marian's roommate. Ainsley represents the progressive, alternative woman. She is aggressive and determined. She shuns the role that society tries to impose on her. In the beginning, Marian defines herself in contrast to Ainsley, who "had a hangover, which put me in a cheerful mood — it made me feel so healthy." Minutes later, Marian compliments herself on her "moral superiority" over Ainsley. Marian also states that she and Ainsley "don't have much in common."Ainsley looks at men differently than Marian does. Ainsley plays with men "pretending to be terribly interested" in them. She says that she does not want a man to take care of her, treating her as if she were a "thing." She also claims that she is anti-marriage. Woman Down Below: Marian's landlady who lives on the first floor of the rooming house. She
Marian has difficulties talking to Clara. Marian states that "more and more, Clara's life seemed cut off from her, set apart, something she could only gaze at through a window." Clara is pregnant with her third child at the beginning of the story. She dropped out of college with her first pregnancy and has been having children ever since. She describes her children as "barnacles encrusting a ship and limpets clinging to a rock." Clara is a symbol of traditional motherhood as well as an extreme example of someone who has made a very literal self-sacrifice by giving up her studies to have her children. Clara is also used as a contrast to Ainsley's more radical approach to motherhood. Marian describes Clara in terms such as weary, isolated, bored, and needing