Cat’s Eye is a novel about a successful artist, Elaine Risley. She has returned to Toronto, where she grew up, for a retrospective exhibition of her work. While there, she reflects on her childhood and wonders whether one of her childhood “friends,” Cordelia, will attend the exhibition. The novel is set in the mid-1980s.
As Elaine prepares for the exhibition, the story flashbacks to when she was eight, and her family first settled in Toronto. Her family consisted of her father, a university teacher of entomology; her mother, a reluctant homemaker; and her older brother, Stephen, a science nerd. Elaine was a girl who, due to moving around a lot, didn’t know what other little girls were like. She would soon learn.
She befriends two local girls, Carol and Casey. At the end of her first year at school, her father takes the family on another four-month bug hunt. When Elaine returns, a new girl, Cordelia, is now friends with Carol and Casey. Not long after, Elaine begins to be bullied by the three of them, with Cordelia leading the assault.
The bullying seems much more subtle than in most stories about children coming of age. It is more psychologically sophisticated than one would expect from tweens. Cordelia tells Elaine that she is not normal and that she will help improve her. One of their main ways of helping improve Elaine is to make her walk metres in front of them when they go to and from school, thus isolating her from the group so they can point out her faults behind her back. The bullying takes a serious turn when Elaine almost drowns. Then, an act of severe bullying has Elaine deciding she doesn’t want help to improve anymore.
The bullying has a substantial effect on Elaine’s life. It destroys her self-esteem, and she begins to self-harm. Carol and Casey move out of the area and disappear from Elaine’s life. Elaine also has a reprieve from Cordelia when they go to different high schools. This allows her to turn the tables on Cordelia when she returns. Eventually, Elaine leaves town to attend art school but always wonders what became of Cordelia.
The bullying makes Elaine wary of other women. She claims to be much more at ease with men like her brother. Elaine grows into a very cynical adult regarding human relationships. This cynicism heavily influences her art, which is mistaken for feminist verve by her fans, making Elaine even more cynical.
This is not a novel that idolises growing up. Atwood started writing the story in the 60’s but then stopped. She only returned to it after having children. Did that experience give her an inkling of how vicious little girls can be to each other? Cat’s Eye is a disturbing novel. In some ways, it is more troubling than The Handmaid’s Tale. It is disconcerting that Elaine’s parents did not notice or do anything about Elaine being bullied and failed to see Elaine’s self-harming. It appears her mother was too busy with her own interests, while her father, who enjoyed teaching Elaine about insects and the scientific method, showed little interest in her life.
The novel smashes the idea of a sisterhood between women. Throughout her life, Elaine is wary of other women and very cynical about their motives. She thinks the fans of her art, the majority of whom are women, have no idea what her art is about. She thinks of herself as not being part of female society and being different from them. She would rather run into a bear in the woods than another woman.
Elaine turns to men for her emotional support. She gets some indirectly from her brother and then has two long-term relationships: one where an older man is in control and the other where she takes the lead. But it is her art that fulfils her most. Her art is where she takes revenge on those who have wronged her. While preparing for her hometown exhibition, her reminiscing results in an epiphany that gives her room to move past Cordelia.
The writing is up to Atwood’s usual superb standard. Once again, Atwood plays around with point of view and tense, as Cat’s Eye is one of those rare novels written in first-person present tense. Elaine has a unique voice, changing from an innocent who desperately needs to fit in to a scarred adult who prefers to be an outlier. It is yet another of Atwood’s books that was nominated for The Booker Prize.
This novel should make readers think about how their childhoods made them the adults they are.