Discuss the difference between Alicia and Plum at the start of the novel, Dietland.

Though both names refer to the same person, the protagonist, she views the two personas as being distinct from one another. Before her philosophical awakening brought on by the women at the Calliope House, Plum plans to again use her birth name of Alicia once she becomes thin. Just like most things in her life, she views the moniker of Plum as temporary, one she is only using until the wondrous and inevitable day when she will be thin and can begin her real life. She tells the reader that the name Plum was given to her by her mother and that the name makes it clear that "roundness" (38) has always defined her.