Discuss the Impact of Childhood Experience on Adult Life Within Atwood’s Cat’s Eye

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A lasting impact of this bullying is her worries over her own children. After her daughters were born she thought she should have had sons because she “didn’t feel up to daughters, I didn’t know how they worked” (p129). She believed she would have had more common ground with boys, partly because she understood what games they played due to her unconventional childhood, but also because she did not understand the games Cordelia, Grace and Susan played. This was since they made up the rules every time and so Elaine did not know how to please them: “Is it wrong to be right? How right should I be to be perfect?” (p 140).

She states that she watches her own daughters in case they were self-harming: “anxiously. I scrutinized their fingers for bites, their feet and the ends of their hair” (p 133). She had a constant need to ask them if they are alright and to scan their friends for “hypocrisy” and then feeling relief firstly because they seemed to have “some kind of protective clothing, some immunity I lacked” (p 129) and when they reached adolescence because this is when Elaine regained control over the bullying.

Elaine had always shown an awareness of Mrs. Smeath’s malicious nature. From this she stored a collection of unflattering images of her in her mind’s eye: “I think of Mr. and Mrs. Smeath stark naked, with Mr. Smeath stuck to the back of Mrs. Smeath” (p 106). Mrs. Smeath is aware that Elaine is being tormented by the other girls and she does nothing to stop this saying “Its Gods punishment… It serves her right” (p 203). When Elaine overhears this, she develops a hatred for her which she has never felt before. She describes gross and distorted images of Mrs Smeath’s body. These images stay with Elaine into adult life and form part of her paintings. This experiences also causes her to lose her faith in God because “He is on her side and it’s a side from which I’m excluded” (p.204), and out of rebellion (because they are protestants) she begins praying to the Virgin Mary. When she falls pregnant with her first child she feels like this is yet another illustration of how she is failing and this compels her to paint Mrs. Smeath, “She floats up without warning”, “Smiling her closed half-smile, smug and accusing (p 379), demonstrating how judged and intimidated she felt by her and the lasting effect of this. During her exhibition, she shows how afraid of judgement she is: “Galleries are frightening places, places of evaluation, of judgement. I have to work up to them” (p 19).

When Elaine nearly drowns in the ravine, trying to retrieve her hat Cordelia threw in, she believes she is saved by an image of the Virgin Mary coming to her, which gives her the will to climb out. This is a decisive moment because this incident is what gives Elaine the strength to walk away from her tormentors as she realises “There was never anything about me that needed to be improved” (p217). Although she states this, she is still deeply affected by these incidents. Several years later, after searching numerous churches, she finds a statue of the Virgin Mary in Mexico that replicates the image of the one in the ravine. Seeing this image causes Elaine to question why Cordelia made her believe she was nothing (p223).

The title of the novel comes from the cat’s eye marble that is Elaine’s talisman. She carries it as a protector but also because she believes it enables her to see the world differently: “I can see the way it sees….I can look at their shapes and sizes, their colours, without feeling anything else about them. I am alive in my eyes only” (p161). Elaine wants to switch off her other senses so she no longer feels any pain and become cool and remote like her cat’s eye marble. Signs of this switching off happen in high school when the balance of power changes and Elaine is no longer the victim. She takes pleasure in knowing that she is making Cordelia feel uneasy now. She is known for her “mean mouth” and she is “treated with caution” (p 263). However, she is slowly recognising that, “I’m not afraid of Cordelia…I’m afraid of being Cordelia. Because in some way we changed places, and I’ve forgotten when (p 255). Her concern is that this emotionless state has caused her more pain.

She has few female relationships. Yglesias suggests when Elaine joins the female support group she finds no haven here and ambivalence flourishes (1989). She confesses that she was cruel with her treatment of Josef and was disrespectful of Susie. Susie’s abortion causes her to fall into “the centre of nothingness” (p 378) and we get a sense that Elaine is constantly fighting depression partly due to the inability to fulfil loving relationships. She claims that “Things that are falling apart encourage me: whatever else I am in better shape than they are” (p 46).

Elaine admits that sometimes she “can hardly make it out of bed. I find it an effort to speak”. She feels worthless and reflects on what Cordelia used to say to her, “What do you have to say for yourself?” to which she would reply “Nothing” (p 45). This feeling of “Nothing” has followed Elaine through her childhood into adult hood. When married to Jon she feels “inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead” and this is when the voice in her head tells her to “Do it”, (commit suicide) (p 419). She states this was the voice of a nine-year-old child. Menacing or not it does reflect that her state of mind was affected from these childhood experiences.

Laura Martocci (2013) asks, if there can be an Elaine that is not defined by Cordelia. By the end of the novel I believe there is. When she visits the ravine for a final time there is a conciliatory tone and a sense that when Elaine sees the image of Cordelia she realises that she is the stronger one and this brings closure for Elaine as she tells her to go home and she is no longer haunted by Cordelia and her past taunts. Elaine recognises that the bullying that Cordelia, Grace and Susan have carried out has come from their familie’s. Cordelia’s father left her feeling unloved and insecure, and so she in turn does this to someone else. Grace is a mirror of her mother’s self-righteousness behaviour believing Elaine to be deserving of the treatment she receives. Elaine is left distrusting of female relationships other than her daughters. A successful relationship with her second husband signifies a move forward. Yet it is only by returning to Toronto that she final achieves peace realising that she will be the only one to suffer if she does not forgive Cordelia’s actions.

Bibliography

Atwood, A. (1988). Cats Eye. Hachette Digital

Atwood,