Puss In Boots by Charles Perrault Fairy Tale Analysis

These days, modern children are probably most likely to have encountered Puss In Boots in the second Shrek movie. The most resonant scene for us all is probably the bit where Puss is revealed to be a manipulative little bastard, making his eyes big and cute in order to get what he wants. I admit, it’s a real triumph of animation.

This is the bowdlerised early reader version I read as a kid.

Of the modern, bowdlerised Perrault fairytales, Puss In Boots remains relatively unchanged compared to others such as Sleeping Beauty, in which the entire second half gets cut off (for obvious reasons, when you read the original!).

If you’d like to hear “Puss In Boots” read aloud, I recommend the retellings by Parcast’s Tales podcast series. (They have now moved over to Spotify.) These are ancient tales retold using contemporary English, complete with music and foley effects. Some of these old tales are pretty hard to read, but the Tales podcast presents them in an easily digestible way. “Puss In Boots” was published February 2019.

Puss In Boots is your classic trickster archetype. Sometimes in fairytales the trickster(s) are minor characters. Take the tailors in The Emperor’s New Clothes as an example. They come to town, create mischief then leave. In this story the trickster is the main character.

Primogeniture

We also have a classic underdog in the character of the ‘third son’. According to old inheritance customs, the entire family fortune would be left to the eldest son, with the implicit understanding that the eldest son would continue to run the farm/business intact but share his profits with the rest of the brothers and the women. In practice, this didn’t always happen of course, and so third sons would have often felt gipped. (I often wonder how regularly the women felt equally gipped, or if their acculturation meant their lower expectations in life allowed them to feel a little more content.)

Anton Lomaev – Puss in Boots

Victor Tauber – Puss in Boots

Clothes

Another important cultural difference between antiquity and now: Clothes really did make the man. They were super expensive. Even today we judge each other on our clothing, but even up until the early part of last century, people had one or two sets of clothing and had to really save up for them, much like buying a car today. Judging someone by their clothes and footwear was therefore a fairly accurate way of assessing their wealth and social standing. In fairytales, boots are what separate humankind from fairy-like creatures (which includes this talking cat.)

Charles Perrault himself was very influential in the court of Louis XIV. This was a period in which fashion was very important.

Here’s Charlie in a wig, I assume.

Various modern depictions of Puss In Boots share instantly recognisable commonalities, notably the thigh-high boots. This comes from influential illustrator Gustave Doré.

Puss In Boots as illustrated by Gustave Doré. The flamboyant and memorable boots naturally became an essential part of his character design. Feathers in hats were once used in Dionysus festivities as a zoomorphic accoutrement, turning revellers into part of God’s herd, aligning them more fully with god. Later they became part of the Harlequin’s costume, and like the Harlequin’s mask, feathers have this dual purpose: They can poke fun at the wearer, but also elevate them (a la the Dionysus festivities).

Gustave Doré (French, 1832-1883) for Puss In Boots

Carl Offterdinger (1829-1889), German illustrator, 1880, Puss In Boots

Puss in Boots – The Fairy Library c. 1910 H M Brock

This particular tale is also known as The Master Cat, though modern audiences are unlikely to know the story by that name.

STORY STRUCTURE OF PUSS IN BOOTS

WEAKNESS

Puss’s master has died and he is given to the youngest son who doesn’t want him. Indeed, the son plans to eat him and sell his pelt. This bit is omitted from earlier versions, in which a sympathetic young man is not permitted to even consider eating a cat (much less a talking one, because that would be tantamount to cannibalism). In any case, Puss’s shortcoming is that he belongs to a poor family and his life is in danger. He’ll need to work his own way out of this mess.

Here’s the son from the Ladybird version, who is apparently surprised to see a cat talk. There’s no such surprise in the Perrault version, indicating that readers from Perrault’s era easily accepted that the fairytale world involved talking animals.

According to Jacob Grimm, Puss shares many of the features that a household fairy would have (Teutonic Mythology).

Being a cat is also a shortcoming, because although he seems to be part human (talking) and wishes for the trappings of human luxury, he still has the body of a cat.

G. Traugot

DESIRE

Puss wishes for a life of luxury. He wishes to save his own life. In order to do this, he’ll have to elevate his master’s position in life then ride on his coattails.

OPPONENT

His first opponent is his master who plans to eat him. But Puss quickly mollifies him. Each character he meets on the road becomes an opponent who trickster Puss has to fool.

The ‘Minotaur opponent’ is the ogre, who is obviously the most fearsome, being an ogre.

The Ogre

Ogres were remnants of Medieval and Roman beliefs in Orcus, a deity or at times also the dark and cruel aspect of the ruler of the afterlife who was lowered to the status of a shape-changing monster. It’s interesting to note that this ancient deity could live in a palace among humans and with human servants as though he were nothing more than another noble. Even more interesting to realize is that this same deity could fall prey to the deceit of a house fairy. Such ogres and hags were, of course, common in folklore as ancient deities peppered the land, terrifying and or ruling the remnants of the people who had once worshiped them. Such beings, while clearly magically and physically superior to humans, were more susceptible to arrogance much like we might imagine a faded sports star or some other person who has long since passed their prime would be.
Analysis of Puss In Boots

PLAN

He makes his first win (the rabbit) using only a sack, some bran and some juicy weeds.

Also from the Ladybird version. Tom Sawyer is a similar kind of trickster, setting up a situation then lying back to watch his results roll in.

After that he turns to stealing, lying, cunning, threats and murder.

I do wonder if the worry of having one’s clothing stolen while swimming in the buff is a widely held fear, much like that dream where you find yourself naked in public. The trope Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen has been used so much in stories since Puss In Boots that I figure it must be.

Cover illustration for ‘Puss in Boots’ published by the International Art Publishing Company, New York, London, Berlin, 1880. Illustrator unknown. This is a rare example of a Puss in two pair of boots.

BIG STRUGGLE

Jean-Leon Huens (Belgian, 1921-1982) Puss In Boots 1957

The scene where the ogre turns into a lion and then into a mouse

ANAGNORISIS

Once again, the revelation comes via the morals dished out by Charles Perrault after the story has ended. These two morals demonstrate perfectly a double standard that exists for men and women, in those days as well as in these; young men are advised to rely on their own ingenuity rather than upon inherited wealth in order to make their way in the world whereas young women (or perhaps the men who marry them off as chattels) are advised to question wealthy young men who come their way as wealthy appearance doesn’t equal inner goodness, and the wealth may be ill-gotten.

Some scholars would argue that Puss In Boots does not count as a fairytale for lack of a clear moral within the story itself. Aside from the typical story structure as listed here, Puss In Boots has:

magic
transformation (the ogre turning into a lion and then a mouse)

typical fairytale elements such as repeated use of the number three
a fairy-like animal sidekick/helper
a princess used as bystander love interest

But no clear moral.

NEW SITUATION

Cat and ‘Marquis of Carabas’ live in luxury inside the ogre’s house.

“The cat was made a great lord and gave up hunting mice, except for pleasure.”

However…

Some versions of the story [not Perrault’s] have the cat’s master turn out to be [an ungrateful bastard]. For example, in an Italian variation, Pippo and the Clever Cat, Pippo promises his cat that for everything she’s done for him, she’ll live like a queen and receive an elaborate funeral when she passes away. Deciding to test this, the cat plays dead. Pippo’s wife is in tears mourning the cat, but Pippo simply says to grab her by the leg and toss her out the window. The cat gets up, curses her master’s name, and leaves. In the Russian version, sets fire to the master’s home first.
Puss In Boots, TV Tropes

Because this is a fairytale and not something to be analysed literally, the reader glosses over certain problems with the plot. If I engage my brain while reading, I end up wondering:

How did Puss know the King was going to be riding past that exact part of the river at that exact time?

Why did the King keep riding and riding along the road, encountering peasants who’d been threatened by the cat?
Does the king travel with a spare set of fancy clothes in his cart?
When the princess first sees the third son he is actually butt naked. Could it not be this that she falls in lust with, rather than his fine clothes? (Anyone else thinking of the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, and the producer’s decision to have Mr Darcy get out of the lake in a fetching wet shirt?)

Wasn’t the ogre’s home modified to accommodate a very large person? If so, how did the king not notice that everything inside the castle was huge?
Why did the ogre’s friends, due for a dinner party, not overpower the king, princess and cat while they were at the castle feasting? Surely they could have. That would’ve been the perfect opportunity, in fact. Then they could’ve ruled the kingdom for themselves.
How did the king not know about this Ogre before?

Gordon Robinson Puss In Boots cover

Dick Whittington and His Supposed Cat

Boris Dekhterev – Puss in Boots

G. Malakov – Puss in Boots

Ayano Imai – Puss in Boots

Denis Gordeev – Puss in Boots

Nadezhda Illarionova – Puss in Boots

The tale of “Puss In Boots” is so beloved and so well-structured that the real life figure named Richard Whittington had this fairytale folded into the mythology of him. The real Whittington wasn’t even poor, yet somehow he became a ‘rags to riches’ hero.

Puss in Boots Pantomime at the Crystal Palace 1874

Paul Galdone, illustrator and writer, Puss In Boots

The Puss in Boots illustrated by Heinz Volkel, 1912

Dick Whittington and His Cat From…My Nursery Story Book (1925) ~Frank Adams~ English~ Children’s Book Illustrator/Landscape Painter/Commercial Artist