Childhood Wounds in Cat's Eye
Elaine Risely is an artist who returns to her childhood home ofToronto for an art exhibition, and confronts her deeply buried feelings ofinadequacy and pain from her childhood while she is there. Elaine is ahappy young girl at first, but as she makes friends with other girls, shefinds they are always watching her, waiting for her to do something wrong,whether it is in Sunday school, or in her house, which does not "measureup" to theirs. Carol sees her unfinished house with "incredulous glee, .. . as if she's reporting on the antics of some primitive tribe" (Atwood49). In fact, the girls games and taunting become even more grisly as theybury Elaine alive, in a "pretend" game. "They pick me up by the underarmsand lower me into the hole. Then they arrange the boards over the top.The daylight air disappears, and there is the sound of dirt hitting theboards, shovelful after shovelful. Inside the hole it's cold and dim anddamp and smells like toad burrows" (Atwood 112-113). It is after thisincident that Elaine realizes she has lost control of herself, and shebegins to live two different and separate lives, one, w
My eyes are open but I'm not there. Today, some people do not put much credence into thedangers of bullying and teasing in school. Thebook shows just how early childhood trauma and wounds can stay with usthroughout our lives. Elaine's adversary in school, her "friend" Cordelia, ends up in amental institution, and has her own very real demons to exorcise, too. She notes early in the novel, "If you can bendspace you can bend time also, and if you knew enough and could move fasterthan light you could travel backwards in time and exist in two places atonce" (Atwood 3). The wounds of childhood can rundeep, and it often takes great work as an adult to overcome the feelings ofsadness and alienation that appear and linger long after childhood. Manythink the wounds of childhood are easily forgotten, but Elaine's charactershows this is not the case, and that parents should be more concerned withbullying and teasing at school, if they want their children to grow up tobe healthy and happy adults. Children can be extremely cruel, and thiscruelty can translate into adult depression, feelings of worthlessness, andan inability to cope with adult life. She says later, At these times I feel blurred, as if there are two of me, one superimposed on the other, but imperfectly. I can see what's happening, I can hear what's being said to me, but I don't have to pay any attention. Only when she can cometo term with her past, and merge the two separate people she has become,can she begin to heal, and begin to live a normal and fulfilling life. There's an edge of transparency, and beside it a rim of solid flesh that's without feeling, like a scar. However, Elaine's story clearlyillustrates just how debilitating and enduring bullying and taunting canbe.
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