Interpretation of a Margaret Atwood (post 8) quote: “Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”

When I google “Margaret Atwood,” I can’t help but notice that Google provides highlights about the author in the right margin, including the above quote from Atwood’s novel, Cat’s Eye.

I have not read Cat’s Eye, so I just looked it up in Wikipedia, which notes:

“The book is sometimes seen as containing autobiographical elements. For example, like [one of the characters], Atwood is the daughter of an entomologist.”

“Elaine [the protagonist] is bullied [in childhood] by the three girls, her supposed ‘best friends.’ The bullying escalates that winter when the girls throw Elaine's hat into a ravine and abandon her half-frozen outside in the snow.”

Since, in Lady Oracle, a similar episode with three girls takes place in the protagonist’s childhood, it may be that Atwood, herself, had some such childhood experience, which was traumatic.

The quotation “that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise” implies that the adult still has a sense of being a child. I don’t know the context of this statement in Cat’s Eye, but the quote has meaning in the context of multiple personality.

In multiple personality, there are certain commonly encountered types of alternate personality. The single most common type is the child-aged alternate personality, which makes sense, since multiple personality begins as a way to cope with childhood trauma. So the quote “that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise” may imply her awareness of the presence of a child-aged alternate personality.