When Marian bakes and decorates the woman-shaped cake (the novel’s titular “edible woman”), it represents her choice to prioritize her own individual desires above the gendered expectations her society has placed on her. Marian decides to bake the cake after running away from her own engagement party; as she mixes the flour and eggs and frosts an elaborate dress onto the cake, Marian at last gains the courage to break things off with her fiancé Peter. Initially, then, the cake is purely a symbol of resistance. Marian presents the cake to Peter, accusing him of “trying to destroy [her]” and promising that the cake (feminine, sweet, and inanimate) is a more suitable “substitute” for the wife Peter was trying to create than she herself could ever be. Then, when Peter refuses the cake, Marian dives in instead, prompting a horrified Ainsley to accuse Marian of “rejecting [her] femininity!”
But after Marian separates herself from both Ainsley and Peter—and after the novel returns to the first-person narration it began with—Marian sees the cake in a more positive, generative light. More than just being an act of rebellion, the cake is also a celebration of Marian’s ability to create things and enjoy them, a model of “production-consumption” that is deeper and more rewarding than the societal consumerism Marian so often laments. And in the novel’s final moments, as Marian watches Duncan wolf down the final slice of her cake, both of them are able to find true pleasure in something so lovely and “delicious.”
The Woman-Shaped Cake Quotes in The Edible Woman
“I worry about her a lot, you know,” Joe continued. “I think it's a lot harder for her than for most other women; I think it's harder for any woman who's been to university. She gets the idea she has a mind, her professors pay attention to what she has to say, they treat her like a thinking human being; when she gets married, her core gets invaded…”
“Her what?” Marian asked.
“Her core. At the center of her personality, the thing she's built up; her image of herself, if you like.”
“Oh. Yes,” said Marian.
“Her feminine role and her core are really in opposition, her feminine role demands passivity from her…”
Marian had a fleeting vision of a large globular pastry, decorated with whipped cream and maraschino cherries, floating suspended in the air above Joe's head.
“You look delicious,” she told [the cake]. “Very appetizing. And that’s what will happen to you; that’s what you get for being food.” […]
She went into the kitchen and returned, bearing the platter in front of her, carefully and with reverence, as though she was carrying something sacred in a procession, an icon or the crown on a cushion in a play. She knelt, setting the platter on the coffee table in front of Peter.
“You've been trying to destroy me, haven't you,” she said. “You've been trying to assimilate me. But I've made you a substitute, something you'll like much better. This is what you really wanted all along, isn't it? I'll get you a fork.”
“Marian, what have you got there?” [Ainsley] walked over to see. “It's a woman—a woman made of cake!” She gave Marian a strange look.
Marian chewed and swallowed. “Have some,” she said, “it's really good. I made it this afternoon.”
Ainsley's mouth opened and closed, fishlike, as though she was trying to take down the full implication of what she saw. “Marian!” she exclaimed at last, with horror. “You're rejecting your femininity!”
[…] Marian looked back at her platter. The woman laid there, still smiling glassily, her legs gone. “Nonsense,” she said. “It's only a cake.” She plunged her fork into the carcass, neatly severing the body from the head.
“Maybe Peter was trying to destroy me, or maybe I was trying to destroy him, or we were both trying to destroy each other, how's that? What does it matter, you're back to so-called reality, you're a consumer.”
“Incidentally,” I said, remembering, “would you like some cake?” I had half the torso and the head left over.
[…] It gave me a peculiar sense of satisfaction to see [Duncan] eat as if the work hadn't been wasted after all—although the cake was absorbed without exclamations of pleasure, even without noticeable expression. I smiled comfortably at him.
[…] He scraped the last chocolate curl up with his fork and pushed away the plate. “Thank you,” he said, licking his lips. “It was delicious.”
The Woman-Shaped Cake Symbol Timeline in The Edible Woman
