ABSTRACT
This chapter provides context for Cathy before studying the formal elements of the strip and, finally, takes a closer look at the use of repetition and variation as rhetorical devices. All of the characters contribute to Cathy's primary obsessions, balancing work and family, livelihood and love, on a daily basis. These concerns echo those of many American women in the 1970s and 1980s. In her book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of AmericanWomen from 1960 to the Present, writer Gail Collins explained of the time that: American women were about to experience an extraordinary period of change that would undo virtually every assumption about the natural limitations of their sex. Cathy offers a window into a particular historical time period, presenting an intriguing and complicated, and thus arguably more authentic, perspective on feminism and politics and the lives of real women.
