Caren Jeß

Eleonore is a woman. Until one day she realises that she is actually a cat. Because she is financially independent and single, nothing really stands in the way of her transformation. She has a cat-skin suit sewn for her and gradually dehumanises her eating, sleeping and social behaviour. In head conversations with Dr. Wildbruch, a therapist who is fascinated by her feline behaviour, it becomes clear that Eleonore's thinking also increasingly resembles that of a cat. Her distancing from human modes of perception, which are far from rivaling those of a cat, is so comprehensibly described that the transformation of her life sounds far more than understandable. One might even say enticing.

At the same time, Eleonore is caught in the impossibility of actually being a cat as a human being. Biology cannot be outwitted, despite all the adaptations. Nevertheless, she adapts as much as possible. In the end, her life consists only of hunting mice in the garden and sleeping, a reduction to instinct and drive. Eleonore's monologue tells the story of how her senses expand and society becomes absolutely irrelevant, with a language that in its delicate poetic precision comes very close to the essence of a cat - despite all its ambivalence. For the retreat of man into absolute privacy also poses the pressing question of the responsibility we must bear as individuals as part of a functioning society.