Student Question
Analyze the story "The Cat Jumps" by Elizabeth Bowen.
Quick answer:
"The Cat Jumps" is about a rational couple who buy a house that was the scene of a grisly murder. The story uses a housewarming party as a way of exploring the nature of marriage and the view that women can be fulfilled by getting married.
The story is about an "enlightened" modern couple, Harold and Jocelyn Wright, who purchase a house where a grisly murder has occurred. While most people are put off by the history of the place, the Wrights, who pride themselves on their scientific outlook, never think twice about the previous owner, Harold Bentley, and how he chopped up his wife while she crawled helplessly through the house leaving blood everywhere. They have the house redecorated and throw a housewarming party over a weekend for several friends: another married couple, the Monkhouses, two single women, Muriel and Theodora, and a bachelor, Mr. Carteret.
The story turns on one of these friends, Muriel, a young unmarried woman who has been invited by Jocelyn to be "fixed up" with another guest, Mr. Carteret. Muriel soon comes to detest Carteret, who also is a man of dispassionate intellect and after dinner describes in great detail...
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the murder of Mrs. Bentley. Jocelyn, who has not bothered learning these facts, is horrified and angry at Muriel for bringing them up and goes to bed in a state of anxiety. She becomes convinced that her Harold is going to act in the same manner as Harold Bentley, and at a crucial moment, she faints. But when Harold Wright calls for help, none of the guests can leave their rooms: Muriel has locked all their doors from the outside.
One of the themes of the story is the nature of marriage. Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Monkhouse think of marriage as a form of safety and believe that Muriel is "unrealized"—that she would be fulfilled my getting married and having a child. Muriel, for her part, sees marriage as dangerous. She tells Mrs. Monkhouse that the idea of "being shut up all night with a man alone" is terrifying, as if all husbands want to murder their wives.
Jocelyn's growing anxiety about the house is also an anxiety about her husband and her married state. The suggestion is that while the Wrights are rational people, this rationality is only a kind of charade and that the true nature of marriage is one in which the wife is always potential prey for the husband.