In Cat’s Eye, Elaine travels back to Toronto for an art exhibition and is constantly in flashbacks of her relationship with Cordelia. Through defining her identity, Elaine explores her role as a mother, a wife, an artist, and a woman. As Elaine tells us her past, we learn exactly why she is so distant, so disengaging, and so distrusting. She is a victim of childhood bullying and it is much more serious in the world Elaine lives in than it says in the papers. While Atwood’s other books explore the cruel relationship between men and women, this book is more vivid on the cruelty between women and women. As a result, every action Elaine takes, every brushstroke she paints, and every artwork she makes is to heal this wound of hers.
Similar to the rest of the novels, Cat's Eye consists of many speculative fiction aspects as well as historical content and dystopian content. In Cat's Eye, due to the family's unstable income and job availability, Elaine's family travel a lot on the road. Each time they move, Elaine gets disconnected with her friends and never being able to stay in one place or school more than a few months. However, one day, Elaine's dad finally got a stable job and they were able to settle down. In this new area, Elaine learns from her friends about the 'girly stuff'. She slow develops a sense of feminism and started being demanding, needing braids, dress gowns, and purses. Cordelia, who she calls her best friend, manipulates her into being Cordelia's 'dog'.
''I am not normal, I am not like other girls. Cordelia tells me so, but she will help me. . . . It will take hard work and a long time.''
Cat's Eye is a very eye catching book, with twists and turns about female relationships and friendship. Elaine's city of despair and all her memories come from Toronto, which happen to be Atwood's home. Atwood spent her high school years in Toronto, as well as the entirety of her university years. She says, "I know Toronto inside out ... but I went to high school in Toronto, I went to some of public school in Toronto, and I went to university in Toronto. So that's enough Toronto to keep one for a while". When Atwood was asked about the 'girlish and adolescent' behavior that is the center of the book, she said "That is with all of us. The same-sex socialization, to borrow a phrase, that goes on between the ages of 8 or so and 11 or 12 tends to get passed over, particularly with little girls, as not very important. But when you talk to real women and ask them how important it was to them, you get a different answer. All children can be pretty mean to one another, and that's not to deny that they can be pretty wonderful, but I think the methods differ between boys and girls.''
Atwood writes in Cat’s Eye, “You don’t look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away”. Written as a speculative fiction and bits of historic fiction, Cat's Eye explores the life of Elaine Risley. Risley loses who she is as a person due to a dramatic and tragic childhood experiences with 'friends'. Therefore, in the future, Risley is very distant and disengaging in her social life. Motifs are used to exemplify this theme of identity through childhood scars that define the current being.