ABSTRACT
The birthday cake as we know it today is only a recent innovation, dating back to the nineteenth century. It would seem to have evolved along with new attitudes towards birthdays, happiness, childhood, and the chronological self. As a gift it operates in an unusual symbolic economy: at once commodity, thing, object and token—terms that this essay takes pains to define—it is given to the child and to the child's guests in a ceremony that evokes the brevity of life even as it also celebrates a life's persistence. Examples are taken from cultural theory, sociological studies and creative literature, including Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, to illustrate the logic of this gift for all the parties involved, as well as the dangers it involves.
