Cat’s Eye

The opening words of the novel, this description about the nature of time informs both the novel’s structure and its primary themes involving identity and memory. The first section of the quote describes the way physics explains the nature of time, which Elaine’s brother (a physicist) explains to her. The primary significant details here are that time is non-linear, which goes against a typical experience of time, and that one could theoretically travel to the past. In the second part of the quote, Elaine focuses on her own interpretation of time, more based on experience. This vision of time is one that is cumulative, with events adding up through memory. With memory as a tool, this indicates that one can look back through these accumulated events; however, it’s not possible to control or predict exactly what will come to the surface. This creates an eerie and ambivalent relationship to time, which isn’t totally hopeful due to this lack of control and the sense that the past is inescapable, but also is a direct contradiction of a more pessimistic understanding of the universe as constantly in decay.

This scene occurs soon after Elaine and her family have settled down in Toronto and her father has started his job as a researcher in zoology. Elaine and Stephen play regularly in the zoology building, which is where they play with microscopes and make their own little experiments. In this scene, Elaine teases out part of her relationship to social norms, as she reflects on how her and Stephen’s unlimited curiosity would be disapproved of. She associates science, therefore, both with curiosity and its limitations—the thirst for knowledge, and the certainty that only some particular kinds of knowledge are socially acceptable. There is an important equality between Stephen and Elaine at this point, which dissolves later in the novel—for now, though, despite their different ages and genders, they share this interest in allegedly repulsive substances. What this establishes in the implication that, when they diverge later, some of that divergence has society to blame, not their innate natures.

In this moment, Elaine is walking home from school with her friends and bullies, Carol, Grace, and Cordelia. Elaine is forced to walk behind them, which is a sign of their cruel exclusion of her. However, Elaine escapes thinking about her exclusion by reflecting on the jar of marbles that Stephen buried in a previous year. In doing so, she already invokes the theme of the past inflecting the present through the objects and memories that last. She also adds a dimension to the symbol of the bridge, which represents both the beautiful space where the marbles are hidden and the place of terror where bad men might attack. The bridge represents both hope and fear, and more importantly a sense of suspension. The marbles are a less ambiguous symbol: they represent hope and beauty, as well as clarity of thought. Just knowing they are there comforts Elaine, which means that their presence is more symbolically than literally important. Her final line about liking to know things that her friends know nothing about marks Elaine’s attempt to build an identity independent of her so-called friends, and her desire to have freedom from their unrelenting cruelty.

Stephen’s death comes as a shock in the novel—although she had alluded to the possibility of his death at a couple of points in the novel, she mostly told anecdotes about their shared childhood; their relationship faded as they aged, and he mostly disappeared from the novel. Given that this death is still clearly situated in the past for Elaine, revealing it so late in the novel is quite jarring, and helps further fragment the sense of discontinuity in the novel’s plot. Thematically, Stephen’s death ties into topics of war and nationalism, as he was killed by terrorists who had captured a plane he was traveling on to a conference. However, Elaine prefers to think about her brother’s death as a natural catastrophe because she prefers the sense of accident. This refines the difference in her mind between war and natural disaster, as the former is manmade and therefore should be preventable and moral. The latter, on the other hand, comes out of nowhere and cannot be blamed on anyone—though this can be bleak. She identifies this war as a religious conflict, which also informs her sense of organized religion as potentially dangerous—groups of people who choose to act on ideology, which can escalate out of hand for no concrete benefit. 

The opening words of the novel, this description about the nature of time informs both the novel’s structure and its primary themes involving identity and memory. The first section of the quote describes the way physics explains the nature of time, which Elaine’s brother (a physicist) explains to her. The primary significant details here are that time is non-linear, which goes against a typical experience of time, and that one could theoretically travel to the past. In the second part of the quote, Elaine focuses on her own interpretation of time, more based on experience. This vision of time is one that is cumulative, with events adding up through memory. With memory as a tool, this indicates that one can look back through these accumulated events; however, it’s not possible to control or predict exactly what will come to the surface. This creates an eerie and ambivalent relationship to time, which isn’t totally hopeful due to this lack of control and the sense that the past is inescapable, but also is a direct contradiction of a more pessimistic understanding of the universe as constantly in decay.

This scene occurs soon after Elaine and her family have settled down in Toronto and her father has started his job as a researcher in zoology. Elaine and Stephen play regularly in the zoology building, which is where they play with microscopes and make their own little experiments. In this scene, Elaine teases out part of her relationship to social norms, as she reflects on how her and Stephen’s unlimited curiosity would be disapproved of. She associates science, therefore, both with curiosity and its limitations—the thirst for knowledge, and the certainty that only some particular kinds of knowledge are socially acceptable. There is an important equality between Stephen and Elaine at this point, which dissolves later in the novel—for now, though, despite their different ages and genders, they share this interest in allegedly repulsive substances. What this establishes in the implication that, when they diverge later, some of that divergence has society to blame, not their innate natures.

In this moment, Elaine is walking home from school with her friends and bullies, Carol, Grace, and Cordelia. Elaine is forced to walk behind them, which is a sign of their cruel exclusion of her. However, Elaine escapes thinking about her exclusion by reflecting on the jar of marbles that Stephen buried in a previous year. In doing so, she already invokes the theme of the past inflecting the present through the objects and memories that last. She also adds a dimension to the symbol of the bridge, which represents both the beautiful space where the marbles are hidden and the place of terror where bad men might attack. The bridge represents both hope and fear, and more importantly a sense of suspension. The marbles are a less ambiguous symbol: they represent hope and beauty, as well as clarity of thought. Just knowing they are there comforts Elaine, which means that their presence is more symbolically than literally important. Her final line about liking to know things that her friends know nothing about marks Elaine’s attempt to build an identity independent of her so-called friends, and her desire to have freedom from their unrelenting cruelty.

Stephen’s death comes as a shock in the novel—although she had alluded to the possibility of his death at a couple of points in the novel, she mostly told anecdotes about their shared childhood; their relationship faded as they aged, and he mostly disappeared from the novel. Given that this death is still clearly situated in the past for Elaine, revealing it so late in the novel is quite jarring, and helps further fragment the sense of discontinuity in the novel’s plot. Thematically, Stephen’s death ties into topics of war and nationalism, as he was killed by terrorists who had captured a plane he was traveling on to a conference. However, Elaine prefers to think about her brother’s death as a natural catastrophe because she prefers the sense of accident. This refines the difference in her mind between war and natural disaster, as the former is manmade and therefore should be preventable and moral. The latter, on the other hand, comes out of nowhere and cannot be blamed on anyone—though this can be bleak. She identifies this war as a religious conflict, which also informs her sense of organized religion as potentially dangerous—groups of people who choose to act on ideology, which can escalate out of hand for no concrete benefit.