Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood is a novel that describes the journey of its protagonist Elaine Risley. Her physical and spiritual journey is reflected in a Cat's Eye marble that ultimately allows her to see and understand her journey, as we readers have already done. It is only when Elaine completes her journey that she “sees [her] whole life.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In chapter 1 of Cat's Eye, it was stated that "[Elaine] then began to think of time as having a form... You don't look back in time but through it, like water. A sometimes this comes out, sometimes that, sometimes nothing.” The reader is introduced to how Atwood describes Elaine's journey and how she (Elaine) sees her life to the city of her childhood, Toronto. It is this physical journey that mirrors Elaine's spiritual journey to self-realization and enlightenment. As Elaine reaches new destinations, she has retrospectives or flashbacks to a significant incident in her life that has her "helped" form her current spiritual state. We first meet Elaine and Cordelia (the "best friend" and tormentor) in the first section of the novel "Iron Lung". the idea of ​​travel/journey is immediately configured in the reader. “Stephen says time is not a line” are the first words written in the novel. This sums up the structure of Cats Eye and Elaine's life. This section of the novel is written in the present tense, as we readers are with thirteen-year-old Elaine. However, we fast forward to Elaine at age 43 and learn that she is doing a retrospective on her childhood. It is then revealed that she is [physically in Toronto now, walking the streets, reflecting on childhood events (“I got to the point where we used to get off the streetcar”). Just being in Toronto makes her relive the repressed feelings and emotions of her childhood “[she] can feel [the] tightness in her throat, an ache along the line of her jaw. [She] started chewing her fingers again. There is blood, a taste that [she] remembers…” Events like these occur throughout the novel to show Elaine’s journey. This particular event kicks off Elaine's spiritual journey back to her childhood and the torment she suffered at the hands of Cordelia. Another way the novel depicts Elaine's journey is through her art. Elaine Risley is a painter and has developed such a reputation that she was included in the "retrospective" art exhibition. Ultimately, these paintings help her see "[her] whole life", however for a long period of time she doesn't really understand what the paintings mean and her reasons for creating them. His repression of memory is revealed when his paintings are described by Charna and Elaine realizes that she doesn't actually know what they are about. The paintings document Elaine's journey, highlighting important events in the journey. They are an expression of his memories through his subconscious. In Elaine's “Empire Bloomers” series, two images of authority, Mrs. Smeath's and Miss Lumley's bloomers, converge, showing Elaine's hatred of two characters who terrorized her as a child. This reveals his subconscious hatred towards them, however he fails to understand that this is the reason for the painting. Another predominant painting that created a 'visual' aid to his journey was the “Three Muses”. Elaine (until the completion of her journey) fails to recognize that the three people in the painting (Mrs. Feinstein, Miss Steward, and Mr. Banerji) are evacuees, like her. It relates..