The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Can natural predators become friends? Is it true friendship? This story reminds me of the frog and the scorpion crossing the river.

This made me laugh, then I felt guilty for the cruelty!

To me, it's a comment on the mouse (representative of the 'common man'?): if you take up home with someone whose nature is to exploit you (very Marxist, before Marx! - and note the mouse does all the housework while the cat's off enjoying himself), you only have yourself to blame when you get eaten.

A surprisingly subversive story, really, that seems to say to the 'mouse', forget co-operation if you want to survive. I know the Grimm brothers were liberals for their time but this is quite stark if we read it as a politicised fable.

I should say that I'm reading the original 1812 edition and I understand that the later editions (7, I think, in total) toned down the tales to suit both a child audience and a middle-class sensibility - so I wonder if this story got changed in later incarnations?

Roman Clodia wrote: "I should say that I'm reading the original 1812 edition and I understand that the later editions (7, I think, in total) toned down the tales to suit both a child audience and a middle-class sensibi..."

I'm reading a later edition. It doesn't seemed toned down from what I understand from your comments.

Interesting take on the political. It can definitely relate to the rampant individualism (I've got mine, you are on your own mentality) that seems very prevelant here in the US right now.

In my mind this is a classic story for teaching children the moral that of our lies are often transparent and that they have way of catching up with us. The names the cat conjured up for her "godchildren" where transparent, making me think of the "tells" we often show when we lie.

The name of the title in the book I am reading is "Cat and Mouse in Partnership." It wasn't really a partnership, the cat leaving the mouse to do the work while she's off consuming the winter stores and lounging in the sun.

And of course we can not over look the lesson of a leopard not changing his spots.

How awful for the trusting mouse! But what a funny story. I have all these conflicting thoughts about this one. I can definitely see that the story could be a source of delight for a young child after the first telling. That sense of knowing what the wicked (clever?) cat is really up to. The devious naming of the nonexistent cousins. The dread/delight as cold sets in and they go to collect their winter store... But not before the cat has one last joke at the mouse's expense. The anticipation of what the cat has really saved for its winter snack. Oh, the shivers and giggles this tale must have engendered!



On the other hand I'm interested in the genders assigned these two creatures. In my version, the cat is male and the mouse is female. Might there be some deeper commentary on relationships? Could the mouse have been seen as trusting and foolish and unable to keep her tongue?

Just musing aloud. I wonder how much gender programming is hidden in the stories we tell our children? Certainly the Frog's Princess behaved badly, but that seems more a poke at the rich. It could none-the-less be an interesting thread to follow.

Interesting. In my copy there were no genders mentioned.

Interestingly, the gender of the cat changes: in the first 1812 edition he's a he as he's a godfather to the kittens; in the later edition I read (undated, free Kindle text) he becomes she and is named godmother.

Worth noting, too, that the first edition wasn't aimed at children - the later editions which involved reworkings of the tales became associated with a child audience.

In German, cat is Die Katze, feminine. The masculine form is Der Kater, as in Der Gestiefelte Kater (Puss in Boots). Mouse is also feminine.

You could compare the cat to the upper classes, who don't work and live off the labour of others. The mouse represents the peasant class, who does all the work and is lucky if it gets anything at all.

Or it could just be a story about a cat and a mouse. In that case, the mouse liked living dangerously.

Lol. A cigar being just a cigar is too boring!

Except when it plays with the matches!

Rosemarie wrote: "Or it could just be a story about a cat and a mouse. "

That's a question I've been pondering. We know that Aesop intended his fables to have morals; he made that explicit. But when the Grimm brothers told their tales, to what extent were they just writing amusing (or sometimes less amusing) stories and to what extent were they intending their readers to take a moral lesson from them.

If Roman Clodia is right that the stories were originally written for adults and only later modified for children, does that change our understanding of the purpose of the stories?

I have been under the impression that the Grimm brothers collected folktales and published them (and that in later versions the tales were modified to make them acceptable children’s stories). Is that impression wrong?

If they were originally folktales, then they would not originally have been composed with morals, though they might have gathered morals as they rolled along in the oral record. They would have been more like local myths. Once the Grimms had them down on paper, they took on a different kind of life and purpose. And I suppose that changing them in subsequent editions could have been seen as part of their tradition of mutability, instead of a process of pablumization (so to speak).

Abigail wrote: "I have been under the impression that the Grimm brothers collected folktales and published them (and that in later versions the tales were modified to make them acceptable children’s stories). Is t..."

In he introduction of mu edition it is said that. These tales were collected in Hessen, nearby their birthplace and the first edition the tales are not for children, in the future editions one of them (Wilhelm I guess) chenged them to fit for children audience.

This tale is so amusing. I see it as a tale about explotation, like a class one, or gender one or race one.

Abigail wrote: "If they were originally folktales, then they would not originally have been composed with morals, though they might have gathered morals as they rolled along in the oral record. ."

You've peeked under the lid of a whole can of worms -- what was the original purpose of folktales in society? Thousands of gallons of ink have been spilled trying to answer that question, but as far as I know there is no general agreement, but multiple theories.

If the mods are interested in the issue, a separate thread might be the best way to pursue the scholarship on the issue. But maybe the smarter and safer things is to carefully close that lid and reseal the can hoping that none of the worms has been able to slip out in the interim!

Too true, E’man, that is probably the wiser course.