Puss in Boots?

B r i d g e s | 1 Richard Bridges Understanding Fairy Tales Professor Heiniger 4/12/2014 Should We Fear the Puss in Boots? “Puss in Boots” is an incredibly intriguing and interesting Fairy tale which has been handed down for generations, revised and re-released time and time again. This has lead to a modern incarnation of the famous character re-introduced to the audience through the lens of the Shrek films, notably Shrek 2 where he is introduced. The question one must ask when confronted with the longstanding feline tale of a hand-me-down cat is: What exactly drives this Cat? What message does he communicate to the audience? The answer is simple: profit. However we see in the Shrek films that this is exactly the opposite. It is true that the precious cunning hand-me-down cat is a stunning example of the capitalism, but this exemplar of capitalism has, like all fairy tale characters, undergone considerable changes over the course of time. Throughout the course of his history however Puss and Boots has been refined into an entity that instead of supporting capitalism depicts it as an unavoidable evil that could be harnessed in order to better society instead of simply making profit. It might first be necessary to explain what exactly capitalism is. Capitalism is an economic principle, or perhaps it is better described as an occurrence, that has seemingly always existed as long as anyone has ever made profit by investing their resources into the B r i d g e s | 2 production and sale of the product for profit (Fulcher 2004). It can be summarized and seen rather easily in the average American employee’s life. The employer owns the capital, the employer pays the worker for their time in order to utilize that capital, the employer then makes profit and the workers make a living. This system however can lead to some problems whether perceived or actual. While it is notably free system, at least for the employer, at times workers can find themselves in situations where they must work in substandard conditions or at insufficient levels of pay to eke out a relatively fruitless existence. This can lead to the workers in this system feeling forcibly controlled or at times even abused in some cases by those employers who instead of looking out for the interests of the workers instead concern themselves only with profit margins (Fulcher 2004). The reaction to such employers is often negative and at present can be reflected in how radical groups or even academics paint an image of capitalism as a system of exploitation (Fulcher 2004). For example Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto which portrayed the entire capitalist system as one built on exploitation with reckless abandon for the good of the working class or even in some cases the middle class. It could be for this reason that whoever the original story teller was selected a cat as the main perpetrator of capitalism. Cats by nature are a predatory beast renowned for their ability to stalk their prey. A predator by its nature exploits the weakest inhabitants of the food chain for its own survival and this is well reflected in the way that the cat in Perrault’s tale hunts the rabbits, and in Harry Robinson’s tale hunts both B r i d g e s | 3 ducks and rabbits. Those scenes serve as a constant reminder to the predatory nature of the capitalist beast. In the story of “Puss in Boots” however Perrault’s portrayal of the system is not necessarily pro-capitalism nor is it necessarily anti-capitalist. However the story has two distinctly capitalist figures, there is the miller’s son who has clearly made an investment in the cat, and then there is a cat, who has much like the son, made an investment in the son’s own general lack of ability. This shows that there are investments made on both sides of the relationship that both parties are participating in this system in some way shape or form. This story does however clearly demonstrate the usage of a lower class to achieve success. Any analytic approach to the story cannot ignore the cat’s sub-human and subsequently subservient behavior; which implicates a natural division of the classes. In the grand tradition of capitalism the master is made exceedingly rich and elevated to the status of nobility by his subordinate’s efforts with relatively little investment of his own. This decision in story telling was meant as an encouragement to new adherents to capitalist beliefs saying that despite one’s circumstances if one acquires the correct tools and invest those tools wisely, perhaps even entrusting them to people who might be better equipped with to use them, it is distinctly possible to scale the social later and power structure and find a perch. It cannot be understated however that is only through the cat’s cunning and work that the man becomes a noble and eventual king. At no point does the master actually control the capital or even interact with it after that initial investment of the boots and trust in his subordinate. The first action of the cat is to acquire a rabbit and to give it as a gift to the king of B r i d g e s | 4 the area on behalf of the “Marquis de Carabara” he does this a number of times, earning the trust of the king through the exploitation of the small relatively helpless rabbits. The profit the cat earns however is not in terms money, but instead in terms of favor. Earning the kings trust until he finds it certain enough that he could lie his master into noble clothes and in a way that would fool even those who were undoubtedly the most noble in the land. He does so by having his master feign distress. This trick not only gives him the guise of a noble whilst, his cat is handling affairs further along the road, but also gets him into the kings carriage perhaps implying that one could with capitalism buy their way to exclusive meetings with higher nobility or at least into that circle of higher nobility even if it was only a guise. Upon accomplishing this goal of his he expertly forces groups of farmers to feign at the very least loyalty to this imagined “Marquis de Carabas”, and they do so. This sets up an interesting pattern of exploitation. We have the master exploiting the cat, who then exploits those who are to be considered lesser than the master or the cat, or at least don’t seem to have a predatory cunning about them in the same way the cat does, and the cat who could be seen as exploiting the relationship between his master for his own gain. The cat’s predatory cunning culminates with the death of the ogre who was at that time the ruling lord of the land until he was tricked into changing into a mouse and of course as the natural prey of the cat was devoured. After this final trick the cat’s master makes his profit he becomes a wealthy lord married to a princess, and the cat in turn is paid with his own lordship. This act perhaps suggests while the workers make substantial profit for their masters, it is still possible for the workers to become their own masters inside the same system. It is that icing on B r i d g e s | 5 the cake that was intended to incentivize the people to work for a wage under someone else with the vague promise of ultimate success. Perrault’s story certainly communicates the core ideas of capitalism quite well. Through investing his resources wisely and allowing his skilled underlings to toil for him the miller’s son is made quite wealthy, more so than his brothers who he previously envied for their inheritance, and his loyal servant is given a suitable place to reside and rule over his own domain as a result. This is a stark contrast from Harry Robinson’s version of “Puss in Boots” which has a great many substantial and meaningful differences from the original puss in boots. Harry Robinson was a Native American story teller who was essentially interviewed and recorded by Wendy Wickwire. The tale as a result is a different experience entirely from Perrault’s tale which is set in a typical European setting. Often times while Mr. Robinson was clear to explain the tale was happening in Europe the story telling had a more rugged cow boyish feel to it that put a uniquely North American spin on the tale. That being said what is remarkable about this tale is that among the many changes that were made to it one incredibly important and perhaps enlightening difference is that the tale is no longer rise to riches. It is instead a reclamation of riches that had once been lost. This is in stark contrast to Perrault’s tale which was undoubtedly a rise to riches tale with the miller’s son never possessing any real wealth before acquiring the cat that we were made aware of. In Robinson’s version a rancher, who only owns a horse and a cat, is forcibly removed from his home by a man with substantially more power than him. The rancher fled under threat of death with his two sons to a different place entirely and inadvertently settled down on B r i d g e s | 6 another person’s land.

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