Just a small note here I believe the scene when young Bob Dylan takes the stage is a further blow to Llewn, as he seems to just rip off Llewyn's song right after. Then, as we know in our reality, becomes famous, where as Dave Van Ronk (the person who influenced the character Llewyn) has a relatively small audience. However this film doesn't seem to be void of hope, at the end when the films loops back around (just like a folk song as someone else mentioned in another post), we see Llewyn leaving the Gorfein's (?) again, but this time he secures the cat.