51 pages • 1 hour read
Charmaine WilkersonBlack Cake
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
In the Author’s Note, Charmaine Wilkerson says, “Not everyone sits down to write a novel but everyone is a storyteller, in one form or another.” In what ways is novel not about cultural identity or families or love or motherhood, but rather about the power and energy of storytelling itself?
Research the history of black cake and its controversial importance in Caribbean culture. When characters object to calling a cake Caribbean because its ingredients reflect far more than Caribbean cuisine, do they have a point? Define and then apply Marble’s concept of a food diaspora as a way to develop sensitivity to diversity.
Make the case for either Bunny (Ella Pringle) or Marble Martin as being a seemingly minor character with easy-to-overlook thematic importance. How does this apparently minor character give voice to the novel’s major themes?
Assess the device of Eleanor using the lengthy recording as a vehicle for confession. Is it cowardly? How would the impact of the revelation of Covey’s past life have been different if she had told her kids the truth rather than make a recording? Using the closing scene out on the boat, does her plan work? How does the recording bring the family together in a way that conversation might not have? Use the Thanksgiving scene for comparison.
All the principal characters maintain a relationship with the ocean. Use the passages from Bunny and Covey’s swimming practice, Byron’s presentation to the classroom about surfing, the experience of Hurricane Flora, and the closing scene in which the ashes are dumped into the sea to structure a reading of the ocean as a symbol.
Using the novel’s unexpected pregnancies, the train accident on the way to Edinburgh, cockfighting, Covey and Gibbs’s meeting in London, and Eleanor’s surfing the Internet and seeing her long-lost daughter on a YouTube video, define the role of chance in the novel.
The adventurous life of Coventina Lyncook is an exploration of identity itself and how a person comes to shape their identity. Given that the main character has four names and dies three times, what does the novel say about the integrity of a name and the importance of a stable identity? Does the novel valorize or condemn identity theft?
Assess how the novel is structured, and research the burgeoning field of flash narratives. How does the novel’s fragmented telling support the narrative of Covey’s life story?
Research the psychology of lying and the psychology of keeping secrets. Each of the principal characters moves to a moral dilemma in which either lying outright or withholding secrets seems the only option. Using specific examples from the novel, discuss how lies and secrets are different. Are they? Which seems the greater moral problem in the book?
The novel tests how a family handles great moral crises. The two family crises that define Covey’s storyline are 1) Covey’s rape at the shipping office; and 2) the disastrous Thanksgiving when Benny first reveals her sexuality. As Eleanor’s awkward apology on her recording reveals, she is not terribly sure the family managed either in a way that would encourage support and love. Examine Benny’s relationship with Steve, Byron’s relationship with Lynette, and/or Benny’s chance encounter at the novel’s end to argue how Covey’s children may—or may not—handle moral crises better in the future.
