The Gendered Texture of Clothing and Art in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye
Abstract
Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye (1988) is focused on the distinct differences between boys and girls and how they must present themselves. Texture, in both clothing and art, plays a central role in how the protagonist, Elaine, perceives these gender expectations. She is focused on the textures that differentiate boys and girls clothing and how they reflect her discomfort with this binary. As an adult, Elaine continues to focus on gender and texture through her paintings made with egg tempera. Her chosen medium is free of texture and the gendered connotations of the harsh and soft clothing of her childhood, providing her control over her desired gender expression.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Any submissions made by the author to the Albatross are in agreement of release under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported license. This license permits The Albatross as well as others to share this work through any means for non-commercial purposes given that proper attribution is given to the author as well as the publisher.
Authors retain copyright of their work.
By submitting their article to The Albatross, the author grants the The Albatross the rights for first publishing.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
