It is the story of a young woman, Marian, whose sane, structured, consumer-oriented world starts to slip out of focus.

Marian begins endowing food with human qualities that cause her to identify with it, and finds herself unable to eat, repelled by metaphorical cannibalism.

[2] Atwood explores gender stereotypes through characters who strictly adhere to them (such as Peter or Lucy) and those who defy their constraints (such as Ainsley or Duncan).

Food and clothing are major symbols used by the author to explore themes and grant the reader insight on each of the characters' personalities, moods, and motivations.

Setting is used to identify differences between the characters; for example, Duncan is encountered in a mundane laundromat, gloomy theatre or sleazy hotel.

However these changing environments are also used to explore different angles of existence, contrasting a freer, wilder glimpse of life, with a civilised, gilded cage.

This novel's publication coincided with the rise of the women's movement in North America, but is described by Atwood as "protofeminist" because it was written in 1965[3] and thus anticipated second-wave feminism.

[4] Marian MacAlpin works in a market research firm, writing survey questions and sampling products.

She shares the top-floor apartment of a house in Toronto (never named in the novel) with her roommate Ainsley and dates a dependable, hardworking but boring boyfriend, Peter.

Looking for a man who will have no interest in fatherhood, she sets her sights on Marian's "womanizer" friend Len, who is infamous for his relationships with young, naive girls.

Marian finds herself disassociating from her body as Peter recounts a gory rabbit hunt to Len: "After a while I noticed that a large drop of something wet had materialized on the table.

Shortly afterwards, Marian's problems with food begin when she finds herself empathizing with a steak that Peter is eating, imagining it "knocked on the head as it stood in a queue like someone waiting for a streetcar."

Before the party, Ainsley does Marian's makeup, including false eyelashes and a big lipsticked smile.

In a description of Peter's apartment, Marian describes the "clutter of raw materials" that had, through "digestion and assimilation", become the walls of the lobby.

This subconscious perception of Peter as predator is manifested by Marian's body as an inability to eat, as a gesture of solidarity with other prey.