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Richard Bridges
Understanding Fairy Tales
Professor Heiniger
3/24/2014
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 led to a modern incarnation of the
famous character re-introduced to the audience through the lens of the Shrek films. The question one
must ask when confronted with the longstanding feline tale of a hand-me-down cat, as per Perrault's
version, is: What exactly drives this Cat? What message does he communicate to the audience? The
answer appears to be simple: the urge to do his masters bidding. 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 capitalism. But is he instructing a new generation of ambitious bourgeois to over throw their former
Aristocratic masters and harness the power of the market as their own, or is he used as a message
against the capitalist cause through and through even extending up into modern times?
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 production and sale of the product for
profit (Fulcher 2004). There are also many different forms of capitalism that have occurred or do
presently take place in the world. It can be summarized and seen rather easily in the average American
employee’s life. The employer owns the capital, the Company Pays the worker for their time in order to
produce or sell the capital, the company then makes profit after the cost of the workers has been
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addressed. This system however can lead to some problems. While it’s notably free, it can result in
laborers being unable to refuse work they don’t want necessarily want to perform due to their ever
increased dependency on wages paid by the employers. This can inevitably lead to the workers in this
system feeling somewhat controlled or at times even abused in some cases by those employers who do
inherently exert more control over their employees than other systems utilized in previous times might
have (Fulcher 2004).
Notable occurrence of this mood is seen in the how, to some degree, radical groups paint an
image of capitalism and even in an academic settings some refer to the system as exploitatative (Fulcher
2004), though perhaps not to the same degree as Marx and Engels had in their famous Communist
Manifesto. In which the bourgeoisie are clearly identified as what might now today be referred to as
employers, and the proletariat, the working class, as modern time wage laborers. Popularly in the
United States while there is cultural support for capitalist society over the more regulated economies of
a socialist system there is also cultural disdain for the current capitalist system which manifests in
radical websites such as “Socialist Party USA”. Which expresses the following views of capitalism:
The capitalist system forces workers to sell their abilities and skills to the few who own the
workplaces, profit from these workers' labor, and use the government to maintain their
privileged position[…]The inevitable product of [the] system is a class society with gross
inequality of privileges, a draining of the productive wealth and goods of the society into
military purposes, environmental pollution, and war in which workers are compelled to fight
other workers.(Socialist Party of the USA)
Perrault’s portrayal of the system here is not necessarily pro-capitalism nor is it necessarily anticapitalist. Both readings are in fact possible depending on which side of the street the reader is standing
on. The story does clearly demonstrate however the usage of a lower class to achieve success. Our main
characters are the Cat and his Master, who is made exceedingly rich and elevated to the status of
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nobility by his sub-human servant’s efforts. Perhaps this was meant as an encouragement to new
adherents to capitalist beliefs saying that despite your circumstances if you acquire the correct tools you
might be able to ascend up into a greater state. It is only however through the cat’s cunning that the
man becomes a noble and eventual king. At no point does he actually control the capital or even interact
with it after that initial investment of the boots. Interestingly though is the choice of animal. Cats are
predatory by their nature meaning they seek out prey to consume for their survival. The first action of
the cat is to acquire a rabbit and to give it as a gift to the king of 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. Much as a capitalist employer could be construed to have taken
advantage of the proletariat. 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 feigning a drowning and a mugging.
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 however 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; a predatory cunning that culminates with the death
of the ogre who was at that time the ruling lord of the land until he was tricked and devoured by the cat.
After the final trick the cat makes his profit, investing his now acquired capital and turning it into a
lordship by way of marrying the miller’s son to the king’s daughter.
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The story in many ways has two 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. The question is which one is the true employer here and what then is
the real statement being made here? Depending on the answer one might derive entirely different
points of view on the subject matter. There is sufficient evidence though through the behavior of other
characters and the title of this tale itself that the cat is really the main character. While one could
certainly look at the miller’s son as the main character it falls short of communicating a real message
beyond “Give your subordinates power to benefit you and it will turn out for the best”. Where as if we
interpret the cunning sub-human cat as the capitalist and the miller’s son as but another pawn to the cat
the meaning changes from being potentially pro-capitalist to distinctively anti-capitalist while still
describing the capitalist method. However he takes advantage of the son’s despair and frustration by
providing him with a convenient solution to a better life if only he had a pair of boots. At which point the
son makes an investment that he is no longer able to get out of.