Discussion Week 7

  If you compare the version of Puss in Boots by Angela Carter and the Grimm’s The Poor Miller’s Boy and the Cat you almost find that these stories don’t bear much resemblance at all except for that they both feature cats. What you can find that is similar, besides the cats, of course, is that the main character triumphs and becomes very wealthy in the end. Of course just like with all of the Grimm’s tales, for the most part, the sexuality is removed or at least referred to in innuendos if we can even interpret those as such. Angela Carter’s version in comparison, in my opinion, is much more realistic and there is certainly sex involved.

The Grimm’s The Poor Miller’s Boy and the Cat includes an apprentice named Hans who works at a mill. The Old Miller challenges all of his apprentices to bring him back a horse; he promises that he will give the mill to whichever of the boys brings back the best one (Tatar 347). On Hans’ journey, he runs into an enchanted cat; I say this because the cat talks and knows who Hans is. This is probably where we encounter our first similarity, with the enchanted cat. If we were to try to extract something from the Grimm’s version which is sexually charged we could take into account that in the end, the cat becomes the princess which Hans marries. We could also and it’s quite a stretch to find it rather interesting that the cats are taking Hans’ clothes off, bathing him, and drying him off with their tails. There are the constant references to silver when it comes to tools and in the end with the castle. These references by the Grimm story may equate to dowry or the practice of exchanging jewelry during a marriage ceremony, but I may be diving too deep into interpretation.

The Angela Carter version is more direct in its references to sexual acts, and the main character of the cat is a male with boots, not a regular tabby female cat that turns into a princess. Although there is a tabby female cat in the story and she helps his master with a letter. In the Carter version Puss in Boot’s master desired company in the wife of an older man named Signor Panteleone (Carter 72). The master is somewhat of a playboy in his exploits with women but has fallen in love with this maiden who is guarded by an old hag. In the end, the master succeeds in charming Panteleone’s wife with his romance letter and serenades, not to mention the devising of a plan to get her alone with him. And then the inevitable happens quite suddenly. As Figaro describes “As if a whirlwind got into their fingers, they strip each other bare in a twinkling and she falls back onto the bed, shows him the target, he displays the dart, scores an instant bullseye” (Carter 78). While this version certainly involves more sex than the previous story the outcome is the same for the master and Hans in the Grimm version. The main male character ends up very wealthy and happily married, in essence, the happily ever after scenario.

In the puss and boots type of story, it seems that the feline is always out to either assist or help the main character to be happy. Whether the Carter version is a real return to the original just like Maria Tatar describes in her essay, at least for me that remains to be seen. I do believe that Tatar has a point when she says that the Brothers Grimm seemed to incorporate more Christian values than Pagan (452). I would think that if I wanted to preserve Germanic folklore that would include more paganism but maybe I’d be wrong in that instance. If I were to make an assessment the Carter version is more interesting, the puss in boots cat is certainly more cultured. The Grimm’s version would surely be easier for a child to read and connect with. I could imagine as a child trying to read the Carter version and not knowing what was going on. It was almost a little unclear in some passages reading as an adult. But if I were to use the rationale of Bruno Bettelheim who suggests that keeping the “dark side of man” from children is not the way to approach parenting (272). Then maybe the Carter story would be something that you might read to your kids, or have them read it themselves and ask you questions about it. Because I know as a child/young adult, I would have questions after reading that text.

 

Works Cited

Bettleheim, Bruno. “The Struggle for Meaning.” latech.edu, http://moodle.latech.edu/pluginfile. php/1463935/mod_resource/content/0/Bruno%20Bettelheim.pdf.

 

Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber. Penguin, 1993.

 

Tatar, Maria., editor. “Sex and Violence: The Hard Core of Fairy Tales.” The Classic Fairytales, 2nd ed., W.W Norton and Company, 2017, pp. 446-456.

Tatar, Maria, editor. “The Poor Miller’s Boy and the Cat.” The Annotated Brothers Grimm. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017, pp. 346-353.