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The Narrator’s Bedroom
The three kittens and cats that the narrator owns over the course of the novel represent the narrator’s loss of innocence and his gradual acquisition of knowledge. The narrator’s first kitten, Fluffy, represents innocence—and when she dies at only a few months old when the opal miner’s taxi runs her over, she becomes a representation of the narrator’s sudden loss of innocence. He must, for the first time, face death. The cat that the opal miner procures to replace Fluffy, a mean and wild tomcat named Monster, represents maturity that’s far beyond what the narrator can comprehend or reach at that time. The adult world, like Monster, is unreachable and dangerous, and it isn’t at all affectionate or comforting. The narrator’s final kitten, whom he eventually names Ocean, indicates that he’s finally come of age. He recognizes, with Lettie’s help, that he can’t force the kitten to stay with him—rather, he must wait for the kitten to come to him when she’s ready. And indeed, she does, about a month after the narrator’s adventures with Lettie. Ocean represents a far more gradual, comfortable slide into maturity, while her name (which is, unbeknownst to the narrator, a reference to Lettie’s supernatural “ocean”) suggests that the narrator has come to some understanding of how the world works, including its most mysterious elements.
Cats Quotes in The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The The Ocean at the End of the Lane quotes below all refer to the symbol of Cats. 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:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
I missed Fluffy. I knew you could not simply replace something alive, but I dared not grumble to my parents about it. They would have been baffled at my upset: after all, if my kitten had been killed, it had also been replaced. The damage had been made up.
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Cats Symbol Timeline in The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The timeline below shows where the symbol Cats appears in The Ocean at the End of the Lane. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
That night, the narrator’s father comes home with a cardboard box containing a kitten, which the narrator promptly names Fluffy. Fluffy sleeps with the narrator and listens to everything...
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...half expects to find Fluffy, but instead, the opal miner pulls out a huge orange tomcat. The cat, clearly angry to have been in the box, hisses at the narrator and...
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Chapter 4
...Lettie offers to let the narrator pull one up, and he unearths a sleek black kitten with a white ear. The narrator asks if he can take it home, but Lettie...
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Chapter 5
...light. The narrator covers the hole and after a minute, pokes in the tweezers and catches a worm. He tries to pull the worm out. It’s pink and gray, and when...
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Chapter 8
...begins to descend. The narrator feels something soft touch his hand and realizes it’s a kitten. He picks it up, cuddles it, and refuses to go with Ursula. Ursula points out...
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The narrator holds Lettie’s hand and strokes the kitten. Ursula taunts Lettie and asks what Lettie is going to do now that she’s used...
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Chapter 9
...firmly says it’s time for the narrator to go to bed. The narrator grabs the kitten and a candlestick, and Lettie leads him into a hallway. The narrator notices that there’s...
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...morning, and says she’ll be right next door. The narrator crawls into bed, and the kitten settles on his pillow. He knows that there’s a monster in his house, and he...
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Chapter 10
...on the strange 18th-century clothes the best he can, but the shoes don’t fit. The kitten follows him into the hallway and then shows him the way to the kitchen. Ginnie...
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Chapter 13
The narrator asks if the kitten is still around. Ginnie says she isn’t, and the narrator realizes he wants to say...
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Chapter 15
...who gave him a rough opal. Monster hangs around, though he never becomes the narrator’s cat.
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...did: about a month after this happens, the narrator arrives home to find a black kitten with intense green-blue eyes and a white ear greeting him at the door. The narrator’s...
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Epilogue
The narrator sits on the bench by the pond and thinks of his kitten: he remembers that Ocean was with him for years. He doesn’t remember what happened to...
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...Ginnie gently says that it’s time for the narrator to rejoin his family. A black cat with a white ear comes to say hello. The narrator says she looks just like...
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