In fact, we spend a few days with Llewyn, but they all bleed together. But later we learn the beast’s real name is Ulysses-the great wanderer-who spent ten years at war and then another ten years on the sea before returning home to his wife and son, a story the Coen’s have already appropriated once for their seminal film, Oh Brother Where Art Thou? This name creates parallels in the film with both Homer’s story, as well as James Joyce’s Leopold Bloom who, like Llewyn, the audience follows for a single, epic day. I suppose the cat could also be read as the spirit of Llewyn’s dead partner, Mike, because so much of the film is about mourning the loss of loved ones. Then we see Llewyn on a pay phone leaving a message for Professor Gorfein, and the secretary on the line mistakes his message that he has the cat as, “Llewyn is the cat.” He corrects her, but the mistake gives us a hint at Llewyn’s connection to the cat. Then what happens? Both Llewyn and the cat are locked out of the Gorfeins’ apartment and sent into the wilds of New York, circa 1961, accompanied by the mournful strains of the song, “Fare Thee Well,” that is ostensibly the song that Llewyn sang with his former partner Mike, who we will learn killed himself by jumping off the Washington bridge. Then what do we see? Llewyn’s POV of the cat sitting on his chest, a close-up that links Llewyn and the little beast, face to face, a mirroring (notice Llewyn’s (the human) furry face).
After the opening prolepsis scene where we watch Llewyn being beaten in an alley, the film cuts from Llewyn’s face back to a few days previous to, of all things, the ginger cat’s silky butt sashaying away from us down the hall and to a sleeping Llewyn on the couch. The Coen brothers try to make this pretty damn clear through the dialogue-the way the cat is juxtaposed with Llewyn and the way the cat’s and Llewyn’s stories parallel.
First of all, the most obvious: Llewyn is the cat.
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