2. Sisterhood, Shame, and Redemption in Cat’s Eye and King Lear

2.1.The Shakespearean Family Pattern in Toronto

Like many other appropriations of King Lear, Cat’s Eyeis a tale of ‘survival and traumatic memory’.48 To be able to cope with certain horrifying memories from her early years, Elaineconjuresup images of a suffering Cordelia, ostensibly to gratify her wish for revenge. She imagines that‘ some man chases Cordelia along the side walk below me, catches up with her, punches her in the ribs – I can’ than the face – throw she down’.

She see she self in situations in which she is powerful and Cordelia is immovable, on the brink of death or in an iron lung, the worst punish ment that Elaine could imagine as a child: ‘Cordelia in an iron lung, then, being breathed, as an accordion is played. […] She is fully conscious, but unable to move or speak. I come in to the room, moving, speaking. Our eyes meet’ (8, ch. 2). Elaine’s return to Toron to becomes a voyage in to the past, a pain fuldes cent in to hell which will, for all her suffering, have are emptive dimension.
There aderso on comes to understand that Elaine’s preoccupation with her girl hood ‘friend’ origin at esin there lent less and to us act sof cruelty to which Cordelia and her loyal followers and accomplices, Grace and Carol, exposed Elaineas a child. In a sense, Cat’s Eye calls forth one of the most virtuo us female characters in the literary imagination and turns her in to a bully, a ‘bad’ girl, a ‘bitch’;50 butsuchimagesaregraduallyreplacedbyElaine’sinterspersedmemoriesof a Cordeliawhoispainedandaggrieved.Themiddle-agedElaineisabletodistinguish a pattern which her younger self was un able to see. Cordelia who is tied to a tragic pattern in which she assumes the role of scape goat, a victim of her father’s unrelenting derision and her elder sisters’ taunting.
Like Shakespeare’s Cordelia, she is shamed for not being able to live up to her father’s expectations. At one point in then arrative, Elaine wonders whet her Cordelia’s fate is written in her fictional name: Why did they name her that? Hang that weight around her neck. Heart of the moon, jewel of the sea, depending on which foreign language you’re using. The third sister, the only honest one. The stub born one, the rejected one, the one who was not heard. If she’d been called Jane, would things have been different? (263, ch. 47)
The family pattern in which Cordelia is the youngest daughter is modelled on the Shakespearean family of three daughters and a dominant father, with the addition of a present but powerless mother. As Sarah Appleton Aguiar observes, ‘Cordelia’s father, as a revised King Lear, is a tyrannicalandimplacable ruler/father’.51 Most fathers in Cat’s Eye are portraye dasenigmati cintimi dating, and dangerous. They ‘come out at night. Darkness bring shome the fathers, with their real, unspeakable power’ (164, ch. 31).
There iss etrable, nebulous, almost God-like about several of them. In King Lear, the majestic authority of Lear may have passed it speak, but the principles associated with kingship – power and obedience –secure the superior role of the father and the inferior roles of daughters and mothers. Similarly feudal impulses are visible in the Shakespearean family in Toronto; the family members arestrenuouslymanoeuvredbyabsoluteloyaltytowards the father who ‘sits at the head ofthetable, withhiscraggyeyebrows, hiswolvish look’ (249, ch. 44). Exudingpower, hedictatesthewaythe mother should conduct and displayherselfandtheirhome.
Whenheisnot there ‘things are slapdash’, but when heisthereitis a different story altogether: ‘There are flowers on the table, and candles. Mum has on her pearls, the napkins are neatly rolled in the napkin rings instead of crumpled in under the edges of the plates’ (248, ch. 44).
The ‘tiny, fragile, absent-minded’ mother (73, ch. 14) reinforces her husband’s authority and comes across, as one critic puts it, as ‘so shadow as hardly to exist at all’.53 In A Thousand Acres and Ladder of Years, the mother’s absence means that the daughters are unprotected against their father’s influence; in Cat’s Eye, the Shakespearean daughter is similarly unprotected despite the mother’s presence. ‘Mummie’ protects the father’s interest sand guarantees that her daughters do too. She does not move her daughters towards independence, but leaves them in his sphere of influence wheretwo of them secure a comparatively comfortable position thanks to theirability to please him.
The two elder daughters, Perdita and Miranda, resemble Goneril andRegan in their manner towards their father. Elaine notes that they ‘havean extravagant, mocking way of talking, which seems like an imitation ofsomething, only it’s unclear what they’re imitating’ (72, ch. 14). In KingLear, the two elder sisters’ similar ability to follow the script places themin a favourable position vis-à-vis their father. Goneril and Regan’s adeptnessat dissembling, playing along in the father’s game, initially empowersthem and rewards them with material wealth. It is an exchange of power,not love; and whereas the father secures his elder daughters’ gratitude, orso he thinks, they receive his power, or so they think. In Cat’s Eye, the twoelder daughters’ ability to play up to the father is also part of an exchangeof power, though for very much lower stakes. In order to escape the scapegoatposition that is Cordelia’s and command a reasonably assured socialand familial role, they must learn to perform and calculate the effect wordswill have on their father. They speak on demand, but also halt the impulseto speak their minds. By disguising themselves and their true feelings, theyreceive a measure of power and agency. Perdita and Miranda have masteredstrategies for remaining in his good grace:
‘I’m hag-ridden,’ he says, pretending to be mournful. ‘The only man in a houseful
of women. They won’t let me into the bathroom in the morning to shave.’ […]
Perdie says, ‘He should consider himself lucky that we put up with him.’ She can
get away with a little impertinence, with coltish liberties. She has the haircut for it.
Mirrie, when hard-pressed, looks reproachful. Cordelia is not good at either of these things. But they all play up to him. (249, ch. 44)
Even when pretending to challenge their father, Perdie and Mirriespeakandact within the family power structure in which he rules supreme. Thetwo elder daughters thus win their father’s favours; but Cordelia is unableto cope with him.
Atwood’s and Shakespeare’s Cordelias fall out of their fathers’ grace becausethey cannot play by the father’s rules. When Elaine visits Cordelia’sfamily as a child, she notices that the father orchestrates a game. WhileElaine too learns to play along in order to earn the man’s approval, Cordelianever manages to master her role. Elaine witnesses Cordelia’s inept attemptsto mollify her father:
‘Whatareyoustudyingthesedays?’ hesaystome. It’s a usualquestionofhis.
Whatever I sayamuseshim.
‘Theatom,’ I say.
‘Ah, theatom,’ hesays. ‘I remembertheatom. Andwhatdoestheatomhaveto
sayforitselfthesedays?’
‘Whichone?’ I say, andhelaughs.
‘Whichone, indeed,’ hesays. ‘That’sverygood.’ Thismaybewhathewants: a
giveandtake, ofsorts. ButCordeliacannevercomeupwithit, becauseshe’stoo
frightenedofhim. She’sfrightenedofnotpleasinghim. Andyetheisnotpleased.
I’veseenitmanytimes, herdithering, fumble-footedeffortstoappeasehim. But
nothingshecandoorsaywilleverbeenough, becausesheissomehowthewrong
person.
I watchthis, anditmakesmeangry. Itmakesmewanttokickher. Howcanshebesoabject? Whenwillshelearn? (249, ch. 44)
ElainelearnsthestrategiesofCordelia’sfather’sgamepartlybyobservingCordelia’sfailures. ThequotedpassageindicatesthatwhateverCordeliadoesorsays, shewillnevermeasureupinherfather’seyes, andthenovelillustrateshowCordeliaiscrippledbyherinferiorpositioninherfamily.Cordeliais ‘lessagile’ thanhersiblings; sheislessabletodowhatshelikesthanPerditaandMiranda, andgenerallysheis ‘moredisappointing’thanhertwosisters (73, ch. 14). Hersistersarenotonlymoresuccessful,andmoresophisticatedthanCordelia; ‘[b]othofthemarebeautiful: onedarkandintense, theotherblondandkind-eyedandsoulful. Cordeliaisnotbeautifulinthesameway’ (72, ch. 14). AsCordeliafailstomaintainrelationshipsandfallsbehindinschool, PerdieandMirrie ‘arebothmorecharmingandbeautifulandsophisticatedthanever’ (209, ch. 39).ThepassageabovealsorevealshoweasilythesuspensionofpityandcompassioncomestoElaineaswellastoCordelia’ssisters. Atthispoint,ElaineistooyoungandtooemotionallydamagedbyCordeliatoidentifytherootoftheprobleminthefather; butthesistersseemtomake a mentalnoteofCordelia’s ‘weakness’ andblameherforfailinghisstandards. Notonlydotheynotprotecttheiryoungersisterfromthefather’sabuse, theyauthorizeitbyimitatingit: Cordelia’svictimizedpositiondoesnotbecomea causeforempathyforthesisters, butforridiculeandmock-parentalspeech: ‘“Pullupyoursocks, Cordelia, oryou’llflunkyouryearagain. YouknowwhatDaddysaidlasttime.” Cordeliaflushes, andcan’tthinkwhattosayback’ (210, ch. 39). ThefavoureddaughtersthususetheirprivilegedpositiontodenigrateandadmonishCordelia. ForPerditaandMiranda, itpaystowithholdpity. LikeGonerilandRegan, theyhavenothingtowinbytakingup ‘what’scastaway’ (I. 1. 255), buttheyhavesomethingtowinbymaintainingthefather’spowerandauthority: itgivesthem a semblanceof power. Thus, instead of protecting their sister’s interest, they look afterthe father’s, and in the process they discharge themselves and the fatherfrom any sort of complicity in Cordelia’s suffering.In King Lear, the elder daughters’ ability to perform according to theirfather’s expectations keeps them within the parameters of the kingdom,but Cordelia’s failure to pay lip-service to her father’s power culminatesin her banishment from it. The inability to calculate the effects of wordson her father, and to support his own view of his position as all-powerfulruler, comes across as disobedience.
A failure at playing her role adequately in her father’s game, Atwood’sCordelia pursues an acting career, as if the Shakespearean stage might offerher some kind of training ground. Her presence in Shakespearean contexts,however, only adds to her sense of isolation and inability to perform.Working as an assistant in Macbeth, Cordelia is in charge of off-stage matters;at the end of the play, a head of cabbage wrapped up in a towel is tobe thrown on stage in order to symbolize Macbeth’s death (245, ch. 44).Cordelia, however, who notices that the cabbage is rotting, exchanges itfor a fresh head of cabbage which immediately cancels the tragic effect
on the audience as it bounces off the stage. The ‘curtain comes down onlaughter’ (245, ch. 44). Since Cordelia failed to understand the purposeand function of the cabbage prop, she failed in her responsibility to thejoint theatrical effort. Speaking the truth is not always right, nor is actingon what is right always the right thing to do. What matters in the contextof the Shakespearean family as well as in the theatre is to maintainthe (theatrical) illusion. Cordelia’s inability to sustain that illusion – andbecome recognized as a player on the stage – only makes her situation themore precarious..