Puss In Boots

Okay, well we finished reading Puss In Boots today, and I have to say it’s my new favourite of the stories. I’m extremely fickle and every time we read a new story in lesson, I like it so much more and decide it’s my favourite! Anyway, on with the post;

Well, I’ll start with the narrator; there are many differences between this narrator and the previous narrators of the stories so far. For example this is the only male narrator in the whole book, and he is portrayed as being full of himself, “for what lady in all the world could say ‘no’ to the passionate yet toujours discret advances of a fine marmalade cat?” This is a quality that none of the other narrators appear to possess and is perhaps a stereotypical quality of males along with his obsession with sex? As well as being the only male character that we encounter, he is also the only one that is not human. I’m not entirely convinced that Figaro’s felinity has any impact on him as a narrator or character, especially as he is modelled on the Harlequin (a human character) from Italian pantomime.

Anyway, what struck me about this story is that even though most of the story surrounds the male characters, Figaro as the narrator and his master whom we hear a lot about, it is the two female characters that appear to be the most clever and dominant. For example it is the female cat, “Tabs,” who comes up with both plans to help their masters, for lack of a better phrase, get together, “she proposes her scheme to me.” Later in the book, we also see how the woman takes control of the situation when the Hag is suspicious of the noise and mess in the bedroom, “then lets her wardress into the scene of the faux carnage with the most modest and irreproachable air in the world. ‘See! Puss has slaughtered all the rats’”

I’ve kind of lost the will to blog now, so shan’t explain about comparisons to Italian pantomime instead here are some extremely brief notes;
Figaro = Harlequin
Master + Woman = The lovers
Signor Panteleone = The Pantaloon
The Hag = Fulfils role of the Pantaloon as she is conned and duped out of money.
Also, this story is almost like a play, contains lots of puns and over the topness etc etc.