{"title":"Othering, Resistance and Recovery in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye","authors":"A. Vukelić","doi":"10.4312/elope.17.1.29-40","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This paper deals with Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye and its depiction of alienation, victimization and recovery in the life of its protagonist, Elaine Risley. Highlighting Elaine’s sense of displacement and her feelings of fellowship with minority figures, the paper provides insights into these processes by relying on postcolonial theories of othering and cultural resistance. It first explores how Elaine is bullied, marginalized and alienated when the cultural and social differences of a new environment make her a target for allegations of abnormality. The focus then shifts to Elaine’s development and maturation as a form of recovery, as well as to the roles that art, memory and compassion play in this process. Ultimately, the paper concludes that Cat’s Eye depicts both an instance of othering and the heroine’s struggle to reverse it. However, even for Elaine, a member of the white middle class, such a reversal remains inevitably incomplete.","PeriodicalId":37589,"journal":{"name":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","volume":"17 1","pages":"29-40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.17.1.29-40","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
This paper deals with Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye and its depiction of alienation, victimization and recovery in the life of its protagonist, Elaine Risley. Highlighting Elaine’s sense of displacement and her feelings of fellowship with minority figures, the paper provides insights into these processes by relying on postcolonial theories of othering and cultural resistance. It first explores how Elaine is bullied, marginalized and alienated when the cultural and social differences of a new environment make her a target for allegations of abnormality. The focus then shifts to Elaine’s development and maturation as a form of recovery, as well as to the roles that art, memory and compassion play in this process. Ultimately, the paper concludes that Cat’s Eye depicts both an instance of othering and the heroine’s struggle to reverse it. However, even for Elaine, a member of the white middle class, such a reversal remains inevitably incomplete.
期刊介绍:
ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries (http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope) is a double-blind, peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes original research articles, studies and essays that address issues of English language, literature, teaching and translation. The guest editors, Jason Blake and Michelle Gadpaille, warmly invite contributors to submit original research for a special issue of the journal in honour of Margaret Atwood’s 80th birthday. Papers are solicited that focus on Atwood’s 21st-century work (excluding film and television adaptations). Potential topics include but are not limited to the following: Experiments in short prose and cross-generic forms Eco-critical engagement in prose or fiction; Apocalyptic Atwood Reception across cultures, languages and generations; global Atwood Translation and stylistic studies of 21st century works Poetic legacy Interdisciplinary approaches Humour.