Feminism in Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye

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Recommended: Equality and justice for women

Feminism is defined as supporting the Equal Rights Amendment. Feminism interests in the “equality and justice for all women” and “seeks to eliminate systems of inequality and injustice” for all women (Shaw and Lee 10). The Equal Rights Amendment was presented into Congress in 1923 from the failure in referencing women and citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment. If the Equal Rights Amendment passed, women would have the same equal rights as men. Women would also not be separated or singled out by other men. In the book Cat’s Eye, written by Margaret Atwood, Elaine Risley, who is the main character in the book, is an artist living within the Second World War to the late 1980’s, and participates in the modern art movement. Due to childhood bullying and being victimized by girls her age, Elaine’s adult life is different than others. In Cat’s Eye, Elaine finds her identity by going back in time willfully and accepting the past, along with the people, to embrace the women she was and is. Elaine is an independent woman artist. This independence eventually contributes the successes Elaine achieves as a painter. It does cause Elaine difficulty in interacting and founding relationships with other women. In spite of what she believes, Elaine’s symbolization of her isolated experiences in each of her paintings speaks to other women. Her artistic career proves that, through art, women artists can open up and be creative and create opportunities for themselves and other women. In the beginning of Cat’s Eye, Elaine returns to her previous hometown, Toronto Canada, after being called for a retrospective show of her artwork. According to spectators, Elaine’s paintings that she created are feminine, making Elaine a ... ... middle of paper ... ..., Alice. "What Little Girls Are Made Of." The New York Times. N.p., 5 Feb. 1989. Web. Osborne, Carol. “Constructing the Self through Memory: Cat’s Eye as a Novel of Female Development.” Frontiers 14.3 (1994):95. ProQuest. Web. Richelle, Lorren. "The Story Girl: Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood." The Story Girl: Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. BlogSpot, 16 May 2011. Web. Sharpe, Martha. “Margaret Atwood and Julia Kristeva: Space-Time, the Dissident Women Artist, and the Pursuit of Female Solidarity in Cat’s Eye.” Essays on Canadian Writing.50 (1993): 174-189. ProQuest. Web. Shaw, Susan M., and Janet Lee. Women's Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print. Vickroy, Laurie. “Seeking symbolic immortality: visualizing trauma in Cat’s Eye.” Mosaic [Winnipeg] 38.2 (2005): 129+. Academic OneFile. Web.

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