Clara is a somewhat neglected and very pregnant friend of Marian McAlpin, the protagonist. 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." In The Edible Woman, the image of marriage and motherhood are pitted against the image of the single, professional woman. 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.....
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