"Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood: Contemporary Realist Literature -Laura

Technically the Realism movement has ended, but several authors keep the tradition of contained, realistic stories alive. An author I feel strongly carries these tenants is Margaret Atwood. While Atwood has written a wide range of fiction, from historical to speculative, her stories never become too large. She focuses on a small cast of characters and develops them through details, interactions, and dialogue, so that even her works set far in the future still ring hauntingly true.

Atwood’s most realistic novel, of the five or six I have read, is Cat’s Eye. This book is about the life of a girl, Eileen, and follows her life from childhood at the tail end of WWII until a painting retrospective she has in Toronto as a near-middle-aged woman. At first, it seems to be a meandering tale merely about this person's life. But gradually the themes become clear. As a child, Eileen is emotionally and at times physically abused by her two or three best friends. Cordelia is the ringmaster of the group, yet they remain friends in high school. Cordelia and Eileen are dramatic foils--they may initially seem different, but they are far more alike, in the end. Many other themes are explored in this novel--the nature of love and marriage, connections between people, terrorism is explored briefly, all sprinkled with interesting historical tidbits and biology and astronomy lessons.

This story is so realistic that many have questions whether or not the piece is autobiographical. Yet even though these characters come alive on the page, is still is not realistic. Events happen a bit too succinctly. Dreams tie into real life in ways that do not often happen in real life. Details, even in a 462 page book, much must still be omitted to further the plot. The book spans over thirty years of this woman’s life. Describing each mundane facet of her life would be tedious and no one would wish to read a monstrous tome about this woman’s life. In essence, even though true Realism is not actually possible, when authors attempt to work towards this ideal, oftentimes amazing works can arise from the attempt.