Cat Person Essay Questions

What does "Cat Person" say about the difference between digital communication and real life?

Margot and Robert's relationship grows primarily via text messages, allowing them to stay in constant contact while they are apart over Margot's winter break. They text all the time, but never really say anything meaningful about their lives: they talk about their cats and joke about Red Vines, but don't have much material to draw on to make other jokes because they haven't spent a lot of time together in person. Their reservoir of inside jokes eventually dries up when Robert tries and fails to make a Red Vines joke on their movie date, emphasizing that, despite having texted extensively, the two don't really know each other. All throughout their text exchange, Margot and Robert avoid disclosing the kinds of details they likely would've learned about each other by hanging out in person: that Robert's sensitivity sometimes comes across as coldness, for example, or that Margot is only 20 years old. Altogether, this seems to suggest that texting is a less intimate medium of communication, and though it facilitates constant contact, it might not necessarily lead to meaningful in-person relationships.

What's so ironic about "Cat Person"'s title?

Throughout "Cat Person," Robert and Margot exchange a series of jokes based on their limited knowledge of one another. They don't know much about each other's personal lives, but they do reveal random facts, including that both of them have or have previously had pet cats. Robert has two cats, Mu and Yan, while Margot had a cat named Pita while she was growing up. The cats become a central joke in their relationship, and they even invent a fake love triangle between the cats as a sort of flirty meme. When Margot eventually goes back to Robert's house on their ill-fated date, he warns her, before they go in, that he has cats. She laughs at his warning, reminding him that they've texted about the cats—they are, in fact, one of the only things she knows about him. However, when they're finally inside, Robert's cats never appear. Their presence is never discussed, and Margot never sees them. After she decides not to see Robert anymore, she wonders whether he might even have lied to her about having cats in the first place—although it's just as likely they were in another room. The irony that Margot knows next to nothing about Robert besides the fact that he has cats, but that the cats are absent when they sleep together, demonstrates just how superficial is their knowledge of one another.

Why does Robert take Margot to a depressing movie?

Robert met Margot when she was working at the art-house movie theater, leading him to assume that she is a film snob. He is clearly insecure about his own film knowledge, and believes that Margot has better taste, even though she has only ever taken one film class. When she questions his choice of film, he jokes defensively that he could've taken her to a dumb rom-com instead, signaling that he might be insecure about his taste or lack confidence in his ability to impress her. This underscores how, even though Robert is older than Margot, he's still quite vulnerable, and he often makes things uncomfortable in his insecure attempts to impress her.

Why does Margot laugh when Robert asks if she's a virgin?

When Margot and Robert finally attempt to sleep together, Robert insinuates that Margot might be a virgin—a suggestion that she doesn't find insulting, but, instead, hilarious. To her, it's funny that he thinks he is special enough to be her "first time": she remembers the first time she had sex with her former boyfriend, recounting the amount of planning and emotional intimacy that the process required. In comparison, her flirtation with Robert has been super shallow and casual, so she laughs at the idea that she would 'do it' for the first time under such unceremonious circumstances. Of course, Robert is hurt by Margot's laughter, demonstrating, once again, that their in-person interactions are often far more awkward than their flirty text exchanges.

Why does Margot invent an imaginary boyfriend in her head after her date with Robert?

When Margot and Robert sleep together, Margot has a terrible time—she realizes she isn't attracted to him at all, but lets the encounter proceed simply because she thinks it would be too hard and too offensive towards Robert's emotions to try and get herself out of it. Over the course of their sexual encounter, Margot's lack of attraction to Robert crystallizes into pure revulsion. She's so grossed-out by him at the end that she doesn't even want to speak to him. Her own inability to stand up for herself has created a sense of resentment towards Robert, leading her to craft a mean-spirited joke in her head: she conjures up an imaginary boyfriend with whom she can laugh about Robert's ickiness and lack of sexual talent. This is essentially a coping mechanism to lighten the mood, distracting Margot from the emotional gravity of having slept with someone she doesn't care for.