ABSTRACT
The central character in Cat's Eye is Elaine Risley. She spent her first several years of life living in a rural environment, where both gender relations and power relations were defined very differently than in the city of Toronto. The vision, like Elaine's treasured cat's eye marble, seems totemic in the Margaret Atwood's novel bestowing upon Elaine a power that protects her. Either way, the vision is spiritual in the sense that it touches something within her spirit and tells her she may head home. The power within the consumer society they are immersed in is beginning to have its effect on Elaine who grew up in a world of camping gear, not purses and the like, but this power is mediated through the world of girls. In a manner typical of Atwood, it weaves past and present together, linking quilt-like, the painting on display and events from her youth, thereby rejecting the linearity of patriarchal discourse.
