Dystopian Fables of Identity: Margaret Atwood’s Food Voices

In its dynamic and polysemic quality, food nurtures meaning and, in a reverse and mutual process, is nurtured with meaning in the various contexts within which it appears. Food is a social matter, deeply intertwined with ritual practices which become performative acts defining people, especially through the shared act of eating. Margaret Atwood shows an ongoing concern with food-related issues in her narratives and, in particular, with the politics of food as the earliest expression of (wo)man’s subjectivity. The choice of food, as well as what one chooses not to eat, becomes a privileged form of self-expression, being inextricably connected with social discursive practices and at the same time pliable to nurture critical thought. The significance of food is therefore psychologically, socially and politically constructed and participates in processes of gendered and cultural conditioning. This volume examines two novels in which Atwood engages more extensively with food and voice than in her other works, spanning a period of approximately three decades: in The Edible Woman (1979), the patriarchal metaphor of woman-as-food expresses relations of power and control based on consumption; in The Heart Goes Last (2015), the same gendered model regulates the dystopian social experiment of Consilience/Positron. In both cases, the female protagonist shows forms of resistance and rebellion by developing an autonomous food voice. The unresolved conclusions of both novels serve as deliberate narrative strategies, encouraging interpretative analysis and ongoing critical discourse.