Hate That Cat

Jack is the novel’s protagonist, and because he narrates the text in the present tense for the most part, he is a first-person subjective narrator. This means that readers get his relatively unfiltered perspective of events and, just like his readers, Jack doesn’t know how things will turn out since he is narrating the events as they occur. A prime example of this is when his kitten, Skitter McKitter, goes missing, and Jack does not know if she will come home safe or meet a tragic end. His grief and sense of loss are even more poignant and immediate because they are undiluted by time or the knowledge that Skitter does eventually return.

As a student in elementary school, Jack is constantly learning about the world and himself, and poetry becomes an incredibly useful tool he uses to express his feelings and consider other people’s feelings. His hatred of cats is founded on his negative interaction with one cat in particular, but this gives him something to focus on and write about other than his grief over the loss of his dog, Sky.