Cat’s Eye: Part 9 Summary & Analysis

The article Andrea wrote about Elaine after her interview has obvious sexism in it, but Elaine seems more disturbed by the implications of her age—between the words “crochety” and “still,” there is a passive aggressive indication of surprise that hints Elaine’s time ought to already have passed. The paintings focus on Mrs. Smeath, whom Elaine hated as a child—the fact that she painted these scandalous images of that strict Christian woman indicates a cruelty in Elaine and in her animosity of Mrs. Smeath. Elaine paints Mrs. Smeath as she least would have liked to be seen.

Elaine’s desire to act out shows her distaste for social norms—she wants to act out at her opening, but specifically to undermine people’s expectations of her. However, Elaine’s biggest rebellions remain fantasies; she wants to act wild, but it appears that the only true outlet for those feelings is her art. It’s also important that part of her motivation to act out is to take these events less seriously—she wants distance and seems to fear earnestness, perhaps because she does not fully see these social rituals as real, or because she does not see herself as real or good enough. Her reflections on Cordelia are telling, as she believes that she has somehow switched places with Cordelia. Though there is no evidence of this in the girls’ childhood narrative, it illuminates one of the novel’s key themes about identity, and about how instead of arguing for a black and white narrative of good and evil, this novel reveals the ways that cruelty can breed cruelty in others, and that people can come to take on traits of the people they clash with because of the intensity of those relationships.

Elaine relishes aging at this point, because it lets her fit in with other girls and expectations that society holds for women, like shaving and having periods. Meanwhile, Elaine and Cordelia only grow closer even as on the surface they appear to become increasingly different.

Cordelia does not seem to fit in at school and likes to antagonize others, but Elaine plays along now that the targets are things like religion, passing cars, and the Smeaths. This shows how insidious this kind of bullying is, and how easy it is to build an “us” versus “them” mentality—Elaine plays along with these insulting stories about the Smeaths, mostly targeted around their class background (as seen through the rationed toilet paper), despite her own history of bullying.

This us-versus-them dynamic culminates in a chilling moment where Elaine turns this savage attitude against Cordelia, by pretending that she is a vampire and making Cordelia feel uncomfortable and left out. While the joke itself is not explicitly cruel, it resembles Cordelia’s early cruelty, as it’s meant to create a destabilizing effect on the other person and establish authority. In fact, Elaine wants to triumph over and dominate Cordelia, which is identical to what Cordelia had been to her. In this sense, the two are more similar than different, which starts to erase the sense of special cruelty to Cordelia’s actions, and reveals it to be scarier by normalizing it.

Elaine becomes mean in Grade 11, both at home and at school, which marks the completion of her trading roles with Cordelia. Meanness becomes a form of self-protection—paradoxically, the more negative energy Elaine puts out into the world, the more friends she has, at least on the surface. This shows how many relationships can be built on a foundation of fear rather than trust, and how especially female cruelty focuses on words rather than deeds. A “mean mouth” defines Elaine, rather than something more tangible that can be traced back to her.

Elaine’s justification for her meanness focuses on crossing lines and taking risks, which speaks to the sense of discomfort she continues to feel with social norms. She targets Cordelia most of all, allegedly her best friend, which reinforces the theme of complex and fraught female relationships. At the same time, the girls start to study World War II, which they all lived through, revealing how rapidly national crisis can become part of myth and history through the establishment of distance, facts, and narrative. At the same time, Elaine seems disinterested in that history, preferring to take refuge in art, which is more of distraction for her at this stage.

Elaine manifests the classics “not like other girls” attitude in high school, as she becomes welcomed by boys with ease. Elaine perceives insecurity in the bravado of boys, who are expected to act certain ways by everyone around them, and respond by lashing out at women. They actually resemble Elaine, in some ways, with this tendency to lash out as a means of protecting against ridicule or vulnerability. This understanding of male sexism that Elaine develops sets the tone for some of her difficulties with dogmatic feminism later on; she does not believe that men hate women, but rather that men have an image of women created in their heads out of their fears, and they hate this image.

Despite her understanding of male sexism, Elaine herself has clearly internalized some sexist ideas, as she also believes that other girls deserve the insults thrown at them, because they try to fit in. This criticism reveals her belief that conformity deserves ridicule and that only nonconformity can be regarded as true or safe.

When this girl is found in the ravine, it is the manifestation of years of threats and rumors turned to reality, and it is a cold shock on the narrative—those childhood stories about the dead, the trick Cordelia played on Elaine with her hat, and every other story about the ravine underpin this story. This girl could have easily been Elaine or any of her friends. Elaine has a hard time thinking about this girl, both because of the temporal and gendered nature of the issue. Photos of her contain all the potential she was supposed to have, potential Elaine shares since the two share similar clothing and behavior.

Elaine also sees shame in this murder, which recalls her own childhood experience of being secretly bullied—Elaine has a tendency to blame the victim borne in her own experience of victimhood, even if she cannot remember it. At the same time, this murdered girl makes her think of the doll she asked for at Christmas years before, which she ended up hating because of its fakeness and sexist body—this shows that even forgotten events can remain in the back of one’s mind as influences.

Cordelia has a difficult time being taken seriously, which shows a role reversal from earlier in the novel. She comes across more as a buffoon than a tyrant now, with even her successes—like her part in the play—turning into farcical failures. Cordelia exemplifies a desire to play a role, as symbolized by her passion for the theater; what this novel implies is that the more one strives to fill a role perfectly, the more elusive that job becomes.

Elaine’s love of biology recalls her childhood games with Stephen, where her curiosity about the world and lack of squeamishness directed her actions. However, Elaine’s tastes have been validated with age, as she is now required to do dissections, whereas the reaction of feminine disgust holds Cordelia back. Even here, the overlap between art and science begins to emerge, as Elaine translates her interest in biology into making these drawings. Dr. Banerji’s rise in life to being settled and having a wife maps Elaine’s, which makes sense as the two of them are parallels in this novel. It indicates that exclusion does not need to be permanent, and that social trends can change.

Elaine’s father is consistently interested in natural catastrophes. However, Cordelia’s discomfort suggests that thinking about catastrophe on a global scale is not normal, which differentiates natural disasters from the war—whereas war becomes part of national narratives and integrated into positive social rituals (like school classes, being thrifty, and adoring the monarchy), natural disasters are meant to be disregarded, perhaps because they do not fall in the scope of things that humans can control. This passage also sheds light on Cordelia’s family life, which is defined by her fearsome father. Cordelia’s uncharacteristic meekness in his presence contrasts with both the bully child Cordelia and the cool thieving teenager. These variations in her identity show that people are often not what they seem, and people who lack authority in one area sometimes try even harder to reclaim it in others.

Elaine’s dreams recall traumas of her childhood that she has repressed, such as the iron lung she used to picture Cordelia in, the fur collar that her doll wore, the plastic purse with the cat’s eye marble stashed inside, and the head from Cordelia’s play. Some of these images, the head in particular, are from the more recent period in her life and her friendship with Cordelia, where she has allegedly moved past from the cruel conflicts of their past. These dreams show that the conflict bubbles under the surface, and that even if Elaine has consciously repressed her negative memories of Cordelia, she continues to form new negative associations. Most of these symbols share one thing in common: disguise or hiding. Something has been wrapped up or hidden away, and this disguises the true identity of whatever lies beneath the surface. This sense of burial or disguise defines Elaine’s sense of identity, as her personal identity is hidden under layers of social roles and expectations, both large scale and on a personal level.

The person that Cordelia describes here is effectively Elaine—faking ill to escape scenarios she did not feel safe in, staying still in order to protect herself from an authority figure—but this clashes with the version of Cordelia that was visible during this same time period. Cordelia translated her own victimhood into victimizing Elaine, and Elaine cannot cope with this knowledge. The deepest revelation here is that all of those cruelties stemmed from a chain of cruelty, beginning here with Cordelia’s father. Complex relationships are infectious, and cruelty spreads like a virus. Given especially that one cannot entirely escape the past, as proven by Elaine’s highly symbolic memories of nightshade and being buried, it seems hopeless to try to cut off these chains of cruelty.

Elaine starts excluding Cordelia soon after unearthing some bad memories from their childhood, which indicates that this exclusion is a form of punishing Cordelia. Cordelia ends up failing accordingly, which shows how essential their friendship and Elaine’s forgiveness have been for her. However, Elaine has no problem moving on, showing that her tendency in the face of pain is still to forget—forgetting or repressing the past allows her to avoid pain. That Elaine realizes her desire to be an artist during her botany, or plant biology, exam shows her path as a direct rejection of her family—biology is her father’s realm, or the realm she shared with Stephen, and to realize her aspirations to be a painter during this exam shows a desire to leave the familial sphere. This revelation also directly links science and art—she chooses art as part of her engagement with science, because even her success in science pushes her into the realm of art, which dissolves the boundaries between the disciplines.

In this parting encounter between Elaine and Cordelia, it seems that Cordelia has completely fallen in the world. Their positions are totally reversed, and Elaine has all of the power that she once lacked over Cordelia.

Negative feelings arise for Elaine when Cordelia brings up the past, which shows how differently the two of them remember their friendship. Elaine’s cruelty in this instance stems from withholding—she knows that Cordelia needs something from her, and she refuses to provide it. In this novel, absence and inaction tend to cut deeper than action, as the closed door or the receding figure becomes a space where one can project negative emotion or self-judgment without end. The Cordelia of this moment needs presence and support, but Elaine will not provide it.