Margot is the female protagonist of “Cat Person.” She is a 20-year-old sophomore in college who works at an artsy movie theatre. She tends to overthink things and frequently rationalizes Robert’s behavior, wanting to believe the best in him. The narrator does not accuse Margot of being naïve but attributes her rationalization to youth, noting the difference therein. Her inability to understand the kind of person—specifically man—Robert is may be due to her lack of experience with men in general. She has a fairly rosy view of how men see her and does not understand that objectification is not empowerment.

Margot remains fairly stagnant throughout the piece, believing that she has the upper hand with Robert until she is inescapably confronted with his misogyny. This confrontation concludes the piece, and the narrative doesn’t answer whether Robert’s text will result in a change in Margot or her behavior. Part of Margot’s inability to see Robert clearly stems from her belief in her own judgment. At every turn, she believes she knows what Robert thinks, even as her justifications for his behavior become more and more implausible.

Indeed, Margot often misguides herself into thinking the best about Robert, which again is presumably due to her youth. She seems to have grown up without being exposed to people who purposely hurt and/or exploited her, and does not seem to have a frame of reference for what this kind of behavior looks like. This ignorance is why she cannot see Robert for who he is.

Robert is Margot’s 34-year-old love interest. He is scruffy with a lot of facial hair. Margot remarks about his weight several times, contrasting it with her svelteness and youth. Some have criticized the story for being fatphobic and body-shaming.

Margot seems to think that Robert is a little nerdy and unsure of himself, which she decides is endearing. In fact, most of the information the narrative provides about Robert is filtered through Margot’s thoughts, which are usually at a disconnect from either Robert’s actions or his speech. In her interview with Deborah Treisman, Roupenian states she wanted Robert to be “intentionally vague, because I wanted people to be able to share in that shiver Margot feels when she enters his house […] Margot, and the reader, can project practically anything onto Robert because there’s so little there” (Treisman, Deborah. “Kristen Roupenian on the Self-Deceptions of Dating.” New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2017).

Part of the way that Roupenian achieves Robert’s projectability is by turning him into a familiar trope. Robert is the slightly nerdy hipster who relies on his wit and gaslights women into sleeping with him. In the aforementioned interview, Roupenian describes Robert as “a person who had adopted all these familiar signifiers as a kind of camouflage, but there was something else—or nothing at all—underneath.” Robert plays into the nice-guy archetype; he patronizingly kisses Margot’s forehead, which she reads as chivalry. She does not realize that he continuously mocks her for her age, even though her youth and vulnerability are what he finds so attractive about her. He is the predator next door, the not-entirely unattractive guy who seems harmless but is actually very calculating in the ways that he uses and victimizes young women. The ease at which Robert manipulates Margot—and seemingly encourages her to manipulate herself—suggests that Margot is not the first young woman Robert has preyed upon.