Previous
Ilana
Catherine was a delicate blonde woman in her late 20s whom Elisha met in France after World War II. She was the first woman Elisha got to know up close, outside of his family. She asked Elisha about his past and spoke to him about love; they eventually began a romantic affair, but when Elisha told her that he loved her, she became distressed, and Elisha fled before they could consummate their relationship sexually. After this, Elisha realized that Catherine saw him as a pitiable little boy. Catherine’s ghost is the first one Elisha sees around midnight on the night before Dawson’s execution.
Catherine Quotes in Dawn
The Dawn quotes below are all either spoken by Catherine or refer to Catherine. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 4 Quotes
"Poor boy!" she repeated. […] Ilana disappeared, and Catherine was there instead. I wondered why Catherine had come, but her apparition did not particularly surprise me. […] She liked to speak of love to little boys, and since men going to their death are little boys she liked to speak to them of love. For this reason her presence in the magical room—magical because it transcended the differences […] between the present and the past—was not surprising.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Dawn LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Catherine Character Timeline in Dawn
The timeline below shows where the character Catherine appears in Dawn. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...tearfully calls Elisha “poor boy,” which disturbs him. Slowly, Ilana disappears from before him, and Catherine appears. Catherine is a woman he once knew who liked to talk to young boys...
(full context)
One evening, Catherine approached Elisha as he was walking in the woods near the camp. They walked together...
(full context)
After that night, Catherine and Elisha often walk together. Catherine asks Elisha questions about his past. Eventually, she starts...
(full context)
Then Elisha grabs his clothes and runs away. He realizes that Catherine thinks of him as that poor little boy in the sky, and that she is...
(full context)
