'Cat's Eye' by Margaret Atwood Quiz

Answer: He is exempt because of his job as an entomologist.

Like Margaret Atwood's father in real life, Elaine's father is an entomologist and she spends her childhood constantly travelling and camping in the wild or staying at motels. The Second World War is taking place at the time and, as Elaine finds out later, he did want to sign up but his field research was considered necessary, so he was exempted from military service.

He later gets a job as a university professor, and the Risleys settle down and buy a house, but they still travel north every summer.

Answer: On a painting course

While at college, Elaine goes to a night class in Life Drawing, taught by Josef Hrbik, a Hungarian refugee who is having an affair with Susie, one of the other female students. Elaine herself also has a relationship with him. Most of the students on the course are men and Elaine goes drinking with them, and they treat her as one of the boys. One of them, Jon, becomes her boyfriend and she leaves Mr Hrbik for him. They have two children, Sarah and Anne, but the relationship does not last and they split up. Elaine later remarries; her second husband, Ben, works for a travel agency.

Elaine is still friendly with Jon and they meet for lunch while she is in Toronto; he is now a special effects artist, making props for horror movies. He and Elaine go for a drink and end up having sex, but he refuses to come to the opening because he would be out of place, and Elaine agrees.

Answer: Her hat

Elaine is part of a trio with Grace Smeath and Carol Campbell, but Cordelia takes over the friendship group and leads them in bullying Elaine in the guise of 'correcting' her. Carol is in the same class as Elaine and has to report on all the things she does wrong, while Grace spies on her in church and reports her to Cordelia. When the girls are walking home from school, Cordelia accuses Elaine of laughing at her and throws her hat on the ice in a ravine. When Elaine goes down to get her hat, she falls through the ice. Her mother finds her in the snow.

The girls lie to Elaine's mother that she was kept in after school, but Elaine's mother disbelieves them and phones their mothers to complain, and Carol gets a spanking as punishment. When Cordelia accuses Elaine of telling on them and she and the others try to gang up on Elaine, Elaine has an epiphany and realises she doesn't have to do what they tell her. She breaks away from the group and makes friends with another girl, Jill.

Answer: Perdita and Miranda

Perdita (Perdie), Miranda (Mirrie) and Cordelia are all named after Shakespeare characters. Elaine and her friends are fascinated by the older girls and their beauty rituals, such as leg waxing. Both of them are gifted and Cordelia does not get on with them. It is also heavily implied that Cordelia is psychologically abused by her father, and the things she says to Elaine while bullying her are repetitions of things she hears at home.

In high school and afterwards, Cordelia acts in a few Shakespeare plays, including 'Macbeth', where she swaps a rotting cabbage - supposed to be a severed head - with a fresh one, and realises her mistake when the cabbage bounces. Elaine makes fun of her over it and senses the dynamic between them has changed.

Answer: She hears Mrs Smeath and Grace's aunt badmouthing her

Elaine is invited to go to church with Grace and starts going to church and Sunday school, although her father worries she might be brainwashed. She takes a genuine interest in religion, but one day at Grace's house, she overhears Grace's mother and aunt talking about her and calling her a heathen, saying that she deserves to be bullied by the other girls because it is G-d's punishment. Elaine decides not to pray anymore and stops going to church. Elaine later develops an obsessive hatred of Mrs Smeath and features her in several of her paintings.

Answer: The Lump-Lump Family

Cordelia transfers to Elaine's high school, while Carol and Grace go to other schools, and the two become friends again. While walking home from school, Cordelia reminisces about Grace and her family's odd habits, such as using tar soap, ordering all their clothes from Eaton's catalogues and rationing toilet paper. Cordelia and Elaine nickname the Smeaths the 'Lump-Lump Family' and make disgusting jokes about them. Elaine jokes about being a vampire and enjoys the discomfort it brings Cordelia.

Answer: Mr Smeath

'Three Muses' features Mr Banerji, an Indian student of Elaine's father who comes over for Christmas dinner; Mrs Finestein, a Jewish woman who pays Elaine to babysit for her son; and Miss Stuart, Elaine's fifth-grade teacher. They are all holding objects: Miss Stuart is holding a globe, Mrs Finestein an orange, and Mr Banerji a glass plate with budworm eggs. All three of them were kind to Elaine as a child and she remembers them fondly.

Mr Smeath is featured in one of Elaine's paintings of Mrs Smeath, 'Erbug', where the Smeaths are shown mating like insects.

Answer: No

Stephen is older than Elaine and an eccentric who grows up to be a scientist. It is hinted earlier in the novel, and later confirmed, that he is dead. Five years before the story takes place, he was due to attend a conference to give a paper in Germany, but his plane was hijacked and all adult male passengers were forced to stay on the plane. The hijackers pushed him out of the plane to his death.

One of Elaine's paintings, 'One Wing', is inspired by Stephen; it shows a falling man holding a child's toy sword.

Answer: 'White Gift'

Elaine joins a feminist group and takes part in an exhibition of feminist art, which includes all her paintings of Mrs Smeath; Jody, another painter, sees them as 'anti-cheesecake'. One painting, 'White Gift', is named after the food donations wrapped in white tissue paper at Grace's church. It has 'the kingdom of G-d is within you' on it and depicts Mrs Smeath being unwrapped.

A woman who Elaine thinks is Grace Smeath enters the exhibition and calls Elaine 'disgusting' and accuses her of trying to hurt people. She throws a bottle of blue ink over 'White Gift'. However, the woman is not Grace; she is too old and Elaine realises her memory is playing tricks on her. The incident makes the local papers and is good publicity for the show.

Answer: A rest home

Cordelia phones Elaine after reading about her in the paper. Elaine notices her voice sounds slower than usual. Cordelia is in a private rest home and is heavily medicated; her family had her committed after she went to a hotel and took a drug overdose.

She begs Elaine to get her out, but Elaine refuses, as she worries what her children might think if Cordelia came to stay. Elaine writes to Cordelia a month later, but her letter is returned; it is unclear whether or not Cordelia is still at the rest home, but Elaine never sees her again, except in dreams.