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Critically analyze the novel Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Critically analyze the novel Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
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Title Analysis: In the novel, Elaine, the main character, has a cat’s eye marble from her childhood that she holds dear and keeps safe. She used this marble to look at the world in another perspective. “I can see people moving like bright animated dolls, their mouths opening and closing but no real words coming out. I can look at their shapes and sizes, their colors, without feeling anything else about them. I am alive in my eyes only.” (Atwood 157) Elaine viewed the world in a more philosophical way when looking through the cat’s eye. She compares people to puppet’s and their words as unimportant. Basically, these people, in Elaine’s world, have nothing to offer. Seeing these people as dolls and not as humans also lets her feel no kind of …show more content…
Role/function:
a. narrator of Cat’s Eye
b. protagonist of Cat’s Eye
2. Changes:
a. Tomboy as a child
i. “I have never seen so many girls’ clothes in one place.” (Atwood 53),
b. “feminine” when introduced to trio
i. brainwash her into thinking that if she did not act in the way that they wanted, she was not a girl at all ii. “I worry about what I’ve said today, the expression on my face, how I walk, what I wear, because all of these things need improvement. I am not normal, I am not like other girls.” (Atwood 130)
3. Conflicts:
a. Trio vs. Elaine
i. “They’re there at recess, and in the cellar at lunchtime. They comment on the kind of lunch I have, how I hold my sandwich, how I chew. On the way home from school I have to walk in front of them, or behind. In front is worse because they talk about how I’m walking, how I look from behind.” (Atwood 131) ii. neurotic behavior such as peeling skin to the point of drawing blood and biting her lips.
b. Other women vs. Elaine
i. “…But still I feel outnumbered, as if they are a species of which I am not a member. “ (Atwood 94)
4. Resolutions:
a. Forgiving Cordelia
i. “I reach out my arms to her, bend down, hands open to show I have no weapon. It’s all right, I say to her. You can go home now.” (Atwood
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Elaine and Cordelia become friends again in high school. In these years, Elaine finds that she can now exert power over Cordelia. Through Elaine’s eyes, this is payback for all the years Cordelia did the same to her. Though this is not enough to repress the memories of the pain she was put through. In the end, Elaine returns to the bridge she nearly died at due to Cordelia. She meditates and envisions Cordelia. She then allows herself to let go of the pain and forgive Cordelia.
i. “I know she’s looking at me, the lopsided mouth smiling a little, the face closed and defiant. There is the same shame, the sick feeling in my body, the same knowledge of my own wrongness, awkwardness, weakness; the same wish to be loved; the same loneliness; the same fear. But these are not my own emotions any more. They are Cordelia’s; as they always were. […] I reach out my arms to her, bend down, hands open to show I have no weapon. It’s all right, I say to her. You can go home now.” (Atwood 459)
3. Compare Elaine’s childhood personality and her adult personality.
a. To put it plain and simple, Elaine, as a child, was naïve. Elaine, as an adult, is wiser.
i. “I am just not measuring up, although they are giving me every chance. I will have to do better. But better at what?” (Atwood
In the beginning of “Barbie Doll”, pleasurable and unpleasurable imagery is given so that the reader can see the extremes girls go through to be considered perfect.
...family that she grew up in was such a negative environment. It is very possible that she will grow up to be an art teacher. One might think this because she looked up to her art teacher so much and admired her; Ellen’s mind is full of creativity and ideas. When Ellen’s school found out that her dad was abusive to her they put her up at her art teacher’s house. Ellen says “I came a long way to get here but when you think about it really hard you will see that old Starletta came even farther… And all this time I thought I had the hardest row to hoe” Like Ellen did, it is important for everyone to look back into their life and see what they have learned. Doing so cannot change ones past but only add to their future. Ellen will always carry the horrors of her childhood with her but by using all of her assets that she gained throughout the book her future can be enriched.
This key moment also reveals certain character aspects in both Cordelia and Elaine that continue throughout the bullying period, for example Cordelia's judgmental attitude "her eyes are measuring" or " Cordelia is looking past me to where my parents are." To me, this first meeting seems too rich on detail, too unbelievable because of the amount of detail that the adult Elaine has remembered. I cannot remember so far back as to what another person's eyes looked like even yesterday, perhaps what they said made a deep impact and I would have remembered it, but surely a conversation between two girls when they were eight years old would not have been remembered with such great accuracy so many years afterwards. Soon after Cordelia's arrival she begins to intimidate Elaine, albeit unintentionally, by leading Elaine to make judgements and comparisons which she had not made before "It occurs to be for the first time that we are not rich." Showing the early signs of pressure and bullying starting to happen. Much of Cordelia's character is also related to the audience at this point, her grownup behaviour is revealed "She has a smile like a grown-up", "But children don't shake hands like this", "I feel shy with Cordelia", as is her childish nature, "The soft squishy kind, like peanut butter".
Elaine reacts to this by (stage directions) hitting the coal-shed door, which demonstrates that she has never forgiven her father for what he did and still feels strongly about the issue. She is also in conflict with her father because he hit her mother and brother and buried their mother without even informing them of her death. Elaine: “ you didn’t even give her a proper funeral” Elaine: “ you never told anybody she was dead” This emphasises how she felt about her mother and how much hate she has for her father because of how he mistreated her mother.
The tragedy of Shakespeare’s King Lear is made far more tragic and painful by the presence and suffering of the king's youngest daughter, Cordelia. While our sympathy for the king is somewhat restrained by his brutal cruelty towards others, there is nothing to dampen our emotional response to Cordelia's suffering. Nothing, that is, at first glance. Harley Granville-Barker justifies her irreconcilable fate thus: "the tragic truth about life to the Shakespeare that wrote King Lear... includes its capricious cruelty. And what meeter sacrifice to this than Cordelia?"5 Yet in another passage Granville-Barker has come much closer to touching on the real explanation. I quote the passage at length.
... to lower herself to her sisters standards as they exaggerated their love for their father in order to receive more land. In the end, Cordelia receives in just justice for trying to do the right thing throughout the play.
and abandoned. Cordelia had been the recipient of love for her entire life,and since she still loved her
"And what do you want from me, you frightening monstrosity whom my innocent and sheltered eyes should never have been made to look upon?"
While the Fool disrupts Lear’s mental state, Cordelia steadies him with compassion, understanding, and truth. When Cordelia has rescued the King, she says that “Mine enemy’s dog, / though he had bit me, should have stood that night / Against my fire” (4.7.42-44). Cordelia is amazed at her sisters’ treatment of Lear because she cannot comprehend the actions of such uncaring people. Cordelia’s considerate nature soothes the King’s overwrought mind. Because the King seems rash and even irrational at times, those who understand him are few. His youngest daughter knows what Lear goes through with her sisters, and wishes that she could “Repair those violent harms that my two sisters / Have in thy reverence made.
Cordelia: Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty/ According to my bond; nor more nor less. (Shakespeare I. i. 89-94)
After Kent delightfully brings the two together and Lear realizes who he is talking to, he begs for forgiveness: “Pray, do not mock me. / I am a very foolish fond old man, / Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less /....Do not laugh at me, / For as I am a man, I think this lady / To be my child Cordelia.“ (IV.vii.68-79). Lear has finally achieved self-awareness regarding his mistaken banishment of Cordelia, and proclaims to her in a surprising display of humility that he is just a “foolish fond old man.” Shocking the audience, Lear does not hold back his newfound sense of shame. He goes on: “Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not. If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you do not love me, for your sisters Have, as I do remember, done me wrong. You have some cause; they have not.” (IV.vii.81-85). In another case of both humility and misjudgment, Lear believes that Cordelia no longer loves him due to his mistakes. Lear could not be more wrong because Cordelia 's love for her father is unconditional and still lives. Cordelia virtuously accepts his apology and assures him “No, sir, you must not kneel,” (IV.vii.67). Although the two do not live much longer, Lear intends to live out the rest of their lives being the best a father can
"Then poor Cordelia! And not so, since I am sure my love's more ponderous than my tongue" (I, i, 78-80). Cordelia clearly loves her father,...
In its historical context A Doll’s House was a radical play which forced its audience to question the gender roles which are constructed by society and make them think about how their own lives are a performance for Victorian society.
In the play, A Doll’s House portrays the fixation to keep up with appearances through the main characters’ actions and words. A Doll’s House creates a statement about the gender roles and social norms in the nineteenth century. Ibsen argues that individual tend to get sidetracked due to appearances, especially in an effort to please society. Individuals tend to focus on the opinions of others, therefore they believe that keeping up with appearance is important. Appearances can be used to masks or deflect various hardships and issues of reality. A Doll’s House depicts that not everything is how it appears. Appearance are not necessary, if fact they only hold people back from doing what is important and distorts reality.
There is no prototypic forceful preschooler. The starting points of animosity in early adolescence, is uncovered by an audit of the accompanying