We can learn from cats, especially that famous one in boots! Not only does the story prove how much feline nature we have in us, it also suggests that, to improve our fate, we must first march bravely into the unknown.
Amazingly, the first “Puss in Boots” tale (on which later versions were based) mentioned neither boots nor a cat. It was part of a collection titled Le piacevoli notti (The Facetious Nights of Straparola) by the sixteenth-century Italian writer and poet Giovanni Francesco Straparola. It tells of a fairy (la fatata) disguised as a cat (la gatta), who decides to help one of three brothers who has recently lost his mother. In Europe, where the law of birthright had long prevailed, the first-born son inherited the majority of his parents’ estate. So, from the already paltry family fortune, the youngest brother received nothing but the cat. However, the inherited animal didn’t ask for the titular boots and sack or hunter’s bag, as in later versions of the tale. The Italian gatta was more self-reliant than any of the subsequent feline heroes. After all, she was a fairy with typical feline characteristics that helped her move around in the world: prehensile paws, caution, keen eyesight, and cunning.
But Straparola’s tale contained something that would become the backbone of all “Puss in Boots” stories: the highly evocative image of its animal hero. The author portrayed the cat as a free entity who decides her own fate. With her changeable, inscrutable nature, she seeks ways out of difficult situations, no matter the cost. Her lithe body and hunting instincts (the main attributes of the feline fairy in Italian folktales) were intended to convince listeners and readers that in life, anything is possible, even for a poor, orphaned boy from the sixteenth-century Italian provinces.
This first version of the canny cat’s tale may also be regarded as generalizing a certain personality type—the clever predator attempting to clamber up the social ladder. After all, they can “claw their way” into the nobility and “tear” other people’s palaces away from them. Besides, Straparola’s feline hero has a lucky life programmed into her: did I mention that her owner’s surname was Fortunato?
Cunning and luck
Heroes with names that foretell their fate—which transforms throughout the story—is a trope borrowed from the folk roots of fairy tales. The social message of someone escaping poverty, their dilapidated family home, and the futureless provinces was based on reality. Overworked and exhausted widows with broods of sons and daughters, as well as working women (in the introduction to his Italian Folktales, Italo Calvino recalled listening to the fascinating tales of a Sicilian quilt maker) would both dream of a miraculous transformation and a better future for their children. These tales conceal a call to “go out into the big wide world” (Ewa Szelburg-Zarembina, Baśń o Kocie w Butach, Puss in Boots in Polish). To go away, never look back, and end up living in a king’s castle, just like Fortunato.
Is a character’s name truly capable of altering their life forever? Of turning a shack into a palace and a boy into a marquis or a prince? Along with a stroke of luck, Fortunato required strength of character, cunning, intelligence, and hunting instincts to achieve his goals. Such traits can be inherited or learned by copying others. Does the famed fairytale cat symbolize a particular set of human features? And did the youngest son who inherited the animal also inherit a cat-like nature from her ancestors? Namely, her sharp claws and wits, acuity, and a sort of feline posturing that permitted the son to fulfill his wildest dreams—creeping into palaces unnoticed, wooing princesses, and inhabiting rich kingdoms. For poor sixteenth-century Italian village lads (not to mention plenty of children today), wealth and elevated social standing seemed unreal, miraculous, even fabulous—and obtainable only through magic.
In Italian Folktales, Calvino wrote that “the ‘realistic’ state of destitution is not merely a starting point for the folktale, a sort of springboard into wonderland, a foil for the regal and the supernatural” (trans. Catherine Hill). In a sense, this would explain why Straparola’s cat is a fairy. More than merely the boy’s companion in misery, she was widely regarded as a spiritual guardian. She inspired the youngest son to change his attitudes toward himself and the world, recognize a chance to alter his fate, and finally empower himself, forever thirsting for freedom and ready for action.
For isn’t that the essence of catliness? That enigmatic energy, coiled like a spring inside a soft, furry package? Cats’ bodies are poised to leap, frolic, or catnap at any moment. Ultimately, they strike a perfect balance between action and relaxation. If only we were more like cats, yet still able to retain something human . . . the boots.
Boots with tassels
“Next he went into the city, to the shoemaker he hastened.
He was shown all kinds of footwear, which he duly tried and tested.
In the end, he made a wise choice: spur-heeled boots just right for castles.
They were yellow, much like lemons, all bedecked with splendid tassels.
Janek also bought a sack there, and a saber: ’twas steel, fine-honed.
Thus attired, Puss stood ready, imagining the kingly throne” (trans. MB).
In this nineteenth-century Polish version by Artur Oppman, the miller’s youngest son gives Puss some tall, ornate boots, a saber, and a sack—nothing like the Italian poet’s hero. The few centuries separating the two stories demonstrate how the fairytale Puss—and folk tales in general—had both evolved, with certain details shuffled around. As a matter of fact, the cat (a male in later versions) acquired his boots even earlier, in the seventeenth-century French fairy tale “Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté” (“The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots”) by Charles Perrault. There, the cat wears tall, musketeer-style thigh boots. In later, nineteenth-century editions, the illustrious printmaker Gustave Doré depicted him as a noble French soldier sporting curly-edged boots with buckles, and a wide belt, feathered hat, white cape, and leather pouch. His garments conceal his fur, and the hat obscures his cat’s nose. His claws are the only outward sign of wildness. In one scene, he raises them aloft to flag down the king’s coach, pretending that his master, the Marquis of Carabas, has been robbed. Doré’s illustrations make the cat seem more human than feline, and he looks glad to be acting as a noble servant or bodyguard.
Here, the boots play the same role as in other tales of incredible, heroic exploits—allowing him to overcome various obstacles and accomplish the unachievable. Ewa Szelburg-Zarembina’s Basn o Kocie w Butach “took enormous strides.” Ludwig Tieck’s nineteenth-century comedy Der gestiefelte Kater (Puss in Boots in German) gave the hero army-style boots. Perrault dressed up his feline hero the most, but actually knew what he was doing—in the writer’s seventeenth-century France, only the well-attired could be successful. Historians have mentioned that nobles would commonly sell possessions to afford all their finery. Wearing coveted thigh boots with “splendid tassels” gave them a chance to become whoever they dreamed of—a rich marquis or even a king. Boots and lacy cuffs were also handy for hiding one’s grimy nails and true origins.
He had a wise gaze…
On the other hand, don’t the boots take away one of the cat’s most vital attributes—the ability to slink and prowl stealthily? “They seek the silence and the horror of darkness,” to quote Charles Baudelaire’s wonderful poem, “The Cats” (trans. William Aggeler).
In every version of the tale, Puss in Boots resembles an ideal human being of his times: an adventurer, a rogue, a lady-killer, an aristocrat, and a savior of the oppressed, all bundled into one. The first engravings by Perrault’s illustrators in the late seventeenth century depicted the cat with a human face seemingly tacked onto an animal’s body. Later covers show a normal cat—albeit human-sized—wearing soft, knee-length boots with his claws outstretched.
La gatta surely wouldn’t have made it into folk tales unless, for centuries, humans had noticed something cat-like in themselves. But there is something human in certain cat behaviors, too—they keep their distance and they are ingenious, with wisdom in their eyes (“The cat had a wise gaze, his claws as sharp as knives,” to quote Oppman’s tale), which makes them constantly survey their surroundings and people—the epitome of vigilance. Having cats at home myself, I have to admire the subtle irony in their stare. Occasionally, I think a cat’s gaze reveals age-old compassion for our human inability to steer our own fate—the same inability that the cat responds to in the tale.
Wading into children’s dreams
“The only established Buddhist tradition is that the cat disgraced itself before being admitted to Nirvana. All the animals, having been summoned, hurried and scurried to the sacred place, but not the cat. It made leisurely progress and even stopped to have a cat nap. The cat was punished by being excluded from the heavenly constellations and is not represented there,” wrote Madeline Swan in her book A Curious History of Cats. Since the dawn of time, cats have occupied a crucial place in mythology; their proud silhouettes and unfathomable eyes have aroused people’s respect and fear. Cats have symbolized the mysteries of life and the unexplained on both the earthly and metaphysical planes. The feline heroes of ancient tales indicate that something vital has been lost. Those old tales accentuated the enduring bonds between the human, animal, and plant kingdoms. Fairytale characters had interchangeable characteristics—none were purely human or animal. But later on, there was a clear divide.
Walt Disney made his first Puss in Boots film in 1922. The 10-minute, black-and-white cartoon presented the adventures of a boy and his friend Julius—a jolly, playful cat whose expressions were later recycled for Mickey Mouse. So began an era that still continues today, although it bears little resemblance to the tales of Straparola and Perrault.
According to the American psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, the departure from old fairy tales has affected the upbringing of generations of children—perhaps much more than we might think. Many contemporary fairy tales are neatly polished and sanitized of all terrifying aspects. “The deep inner conflicts originating in our primitive drives and our violent emotions are all denied in much of modern children’s literature, and so the child is not helped in coping with them,” wrote Bettelheim in his book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. In the past, fairy tales taught us to accept nature as a whole, with its dark and bright sides, and demonstrated how they were interconnected. They served as an initiation for growing girls and boys, and helped make sense of the complex world of feelings.
The feline hero has always played a key role, as all the mothers who dictated their tales to storytellers knew. The “claws” of these stories were intended to throw the “world wide open” for children who were often orphaned at a young age. The hero cat allowed youngsters to believe they could really alter their lives for the better along the way. Sadly, all that remains of “Puss in Boots” in the modern-day tales is a few funny quotes, an abundance of memes, and film references that only the adults will get. The boots of modern humanity have waded far too deep into children’s dreams.
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