Cordelia In Cat's Eye

The story Cat’s Eye continues with Elaine, who still continues to face the brutal treatment from her so-called friends, Cordelia, Grace, and Carol. This only continues to escalate, and Elaine is slowly conditioned to dread meeting them, and is constantly under stress and fear when around them. Elaine faces an internal debate, thinking that “I know Cordelia is standing beside her. If I say no, I will be accused of something. If I say yes, I will have to do it.” (Atwood 146) She has accepted this as a fact, and allows herself to be overpowered, because she doesn’t believe there’s any other way out of it. The only taste of relief that she is given, is over the summer, when she’s taken away from town back to the comforting wilderness, residing …show more content…
This is further proven when Elaine recounts that “[t]he next time Cordelia tells me to stand against the wall I faint again. Now I can do it almost whenever I want to. I hold my breath and hear the rustling noise and see the blackness and then I slip sideways, out of my body, and I’m somewhere else.” (185) This is a huge warning sign, because Elaine is allowing herself to push her body to the limit, and faint. She does this out of her own will, showing how desperate she is to escape from reality, even if it’s just a little while. Cordelia and the others slowly catch on, and Cordelia asks, “[g]o ahead, let’s see you faint. Come on. Faint.” (185) Now that everyone has realized that Elaine is purposefully doing this, there no longer seems to be a point, and another way to escape has been closed off. Eventually, it reaches a breaking point. Cordelia demands Elaine to go down the dangerous ravine, so she can retrieve her hat. Elaine thinks that “[m]aybe she’s gone too far, hit, finally, some core of resistance in me. If I refuse to do what she says this time, who knows where my defiance will end?” (200) However, Elaine does complete the demand, because she still cares about what Cordelia thinks about her, and is still clinging onto the idea of having friends. After the ordeal, Elaine’s personality completely shifted, and she began to be …show more content…
It is clear that Elaine has grown as a person, and is much more defiant than before. She seems to look at the world differently, and doesn’t live to please Cordelia anymore. She’s made the gesture of burying away her past, and looking forward, as she bears scars from that period of time. Elaine observes the people around her in her new school, and thinks “I don’t feel younger than these people. In some ways I feel older...I am calm; I regard the antics of my fellow students, who act like the textbook, with a combination of scientific curiosity and almost matronly indulgence.” (221-222) Elaine proves to be almost disconnected from other students, even from reality itself. She realizes she’s no longer like the other people her age, and she relishes in this fact. More changes are present, and this is shown when she spent another summer in a cabin. She states, “My parent’s relentless cheer is no comfort. It would almost be better if they could be as surly as I am, or surlier; this would make me feel more ordinary.” (237) This is a very drastic change from the Elaine that we watched grow up, who was pushed around, and had a small innocence within her and continued to remain ignorant of the world. Only a year has passed by, yet, Elaine is so much more different, and she claims that she is different from the rest. This may be the case, because she is the one holding the burden