Due to Marian’s position at Seymour Surveys, her character is predisposed to understanding people through the lens of marketing and consumerism. These ideologies then influence the novel’s discussion of identity, as many of the characters base their identities upon the items they buy, clothes they wear, or food they eat.

Marian’s work focuses on translating survey questions to target generalized groups of similar people with predictable identities. Her work with the beer commercial requires her to seek out a specific audience of men more likely to be influenced by the advertisement (22). After she and Peter solidify their engagement, Marian’s reflections change her own identity into a consumable product: "He sounded as though he’d just bought a shiny new car. I gave him a tender chrome-plated smile; that is, I meant the smile to express tenderness, but my mouth felt stiff and bright and somehow expensive” (92). That her struggle to maintain a happy composure should be “expensive” implies not only the transactional nature of her disingenuous agreement to Peter’s proposal but also that she views herself and her identity as something that can be bought—even if the price is high. This belief continues through the novel and appears again when after hiding her engagement from Duncan’s roommates Marian retrieves her engagement ring from inside her purse, “from among the pennies, nickels, and dimes” (221) and puts it back on her finger.

A further connection between bodily identity and consumerism is displayed at Seymour Surveys’ women-only Christmas party. The party itself is located within the office building, a site responsible for managing the connection between predictable identities and consumerism. Marian becomes preoccupied with studying the bodies around her, noticing how easily her own sense of self can shift outside of her body and enter the larger “sargasso-sea” of a generalized feminine identity she takes part in with the other women. After her engagement is announced in this space, Marian notes how the conversations she has with her coworkers become more focused on the consumable aspects of her new identity as a fiancée: “As soon as the surprise-effect had worn off, the conversation became as remote and impersonal, on both sides, as the razorblade questionnaires: enquiries about the wedding, the future apartment, the possible china and glassware, what would be bought and worn” (120). The things “bought and worn” suggest an external identity dependent on consumable objects, but Marian is interested in understanding her internal, possibly unchanging identity as being uninfluenced by consumerism.

Marian’s character arc finishes in her consuming a cake shaped as a woman. In this sense, Atwood plays upon the two different implications of “consume” and switches from “consume” in a financial sense to “consume” in a physical sense. By making this shift and including her physical body in the process of consumption, Marian herself is able to assert her identity outside the influence of marketing, advertisement, and societal expectations. She brings the consumable object into herself, thereby introducing it to her perceived unchanging, internal identity.