So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content, gender discrimination, emotional abuse, and sexual violence and harassment.

In “So Late in the Day,” the penis cake is symbolic of both humiliation and self-obsession. When Cathal returns home from work, he searches his cupboards and refrigerator for something to eat and discovers the “phallus-shaped cake with flesh-colored icing which his brother had ordered, as a joke, for the stag party” (26). Because Sabine called off the wedding, the cake remains untouched in Cathal’s fridge; it thus reminds Cathal of what Sabine “took” from him and makes him feel humiliated.

However, not long later, Cathal ends up eating the cake—imagery that symbolizes consumption of the self. He reaches into the fridge “for the flesh-colored cake, lift[s] it out onto the island” and uses “the steak knife” he used to open his Weight Watchers meal to slice “the whole tip off” the cake (41). He then proceeds to take this severed tip back to the couch and shovel large mouthfuls of it into his mouth. This imagery shows Cathal essentially eating his genitals—a notion that implies his obsession with himself and exposes his weak state.