This Book is Not a Piece of Cake

"Elizabeth rather wondered whether Miss Kilman could be hungry. It was her way of eating, eating with intensity, then looking, again and again, at a plate of sugared cakes on the table next to them; then, when a lady and a child sat down and the child took the cake, could Miss Kilman really mind it? Yes, Miss Kilman did mind it. She had wanted that cake - the pink one. The pleasure of eating was almost the only pure pleasure left her, and then to be baffled even in that!" (Woolf 130)

If anything, this passage truly reveals the darkness of Miss Kilman's character. While I can sympathize with her in craving unhealthy desserts, Miss Kilman's cake ordeal is not a simply a casual desire -- it is a refection of the deep misery that characterizes her life. As detailed previously in the novel, Kilman seems to be cursed with all the possible misfortunes in 20th century English society: physical unattractiveness, financial instability, and a figurative label on the back of her head reading "forever alone". As a result, she embodies the ultimate miserable human being: invariably spiteful, constantly jealous, and eternally hateful of herself and the rest of the world.

Because she is unable to attain emotional fulfillment, Miss Kilman can only settle for physical satisfaction. Deeming food consumption one of her sole purposes in life, she reveals within herself a profound sense of hunger - for food, for love, and for acceptance and affluence in society. However, even in the instance of eating, she is able to find hate. When she reacts violently to a young child enjoying a piece of cake, Miss Kilman's hunger becomes so powerful that she not only seeks to fulfill her own desires, but resents the everyday actions of others as a detraction from her own happiness. Because Miss Kilman has lived her whole life envying the simple pleasures that women like Clarissa enjoy, she inevitably treats the cake - and its young and innocent recipient - the same way. Ultimately, every little thing in her life comes down to one core philosophy: if I can't enjoy it, then no one can.
Someone please give this poor woman a piece of cake.