Cheshire Cat
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- For other uses of the term Cheshire cat, see Cheshire Cat (disambiguation).
The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat appearing in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice first encounters it at the Duchess's house in her kitchen, and then later outside on the branches of a tree, where it appears and disappears at will, engaging Alice in amusing but sometimes vexing conversation. The cat sometimes points out philosophical points that annoy or baffle Alice. It does, however, appear to cheer her up when it turns up suddenly at the Queen of Hearts' croquet field, and when sentenced to death baffles everyone by making its body disappear, but its head remain visible, sparking a massive argument between the executioner and the King and Queen of Hearts about whether or not something that does not have a body can indeed be beheaded.
At one point, the cat disappears gradually until nothing is left but its grin, prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat.[1] This has become a point of notability for the cat: most people remember it most strongly performing its vanishing act.
Cheshire is not an actual breed of cat, the area of Cheshire in England is famous for its cheesemaking, salt, and silk, as well as being a major railway junction, but no mention is made of any unique breeding.[2]
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[edit] Inspiration
[edit] Cheese moulds
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says grinning like a Cheshire cat is "an old simile, popularized by Lewis Carroll". Brewer adds, "The phrase has never been satisfactorily accounted for, but it has been said that cheese was formerly sold in Cheshire moulded like a cat that looked as though it was grinning".[3] The cheese was cut from the tail end, so that the last part eaten was the head of the smiling cat.
[edit] Dockyard cats
Another origin for the story concerns the cats that lived in the port of Chester. Until the late 1970s, a monument to the Cheshire Cat stood beside the River Dee, where there had formerly been a cheese warehouse. It was said that cats sitting on the dock would wait for the rats and mice to leave the ships transporting Cheshire cheese to London and were the happiest cats in the kingdom – hence their grins. The monument was destroyed when Copfield House, which stood on the site of the warehouse, was demolished in 1979.
[edit] Cats from a dairy county
A yet simpler explanation and one widely believed in the area itself is that, Cheshire being famed as a dairy county, its cats enjoyed copious amounts of milk and cream and in consequence displayed a contented grin.
[edit] Church carvings
There are reports that Carroll found inspiration for the Cheshire Cat in a carving in a church in the village of Croft-on-Tees, in the north east of England, where his father had been rector. Another view is that the cat is based on a gargoyle found on a pillar in St Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, where Carroll used to travel frequently when he lived in Guildford. The cat is named after Carroll's home county, Cheshire. Others attribute it to a carving on the west face of the tower at St Wilfrid's Church, Grappenhall, Warrington, Cheshire.
[edit] See also
[edit] Quotes
- From Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:
- "Please, would you tell me," said Alice, a little timidly, ... "why your cat grins like that?"
- "It's a Cheshire cat," said the Duchess, "and that's why."
- "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
- "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
- "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
- "You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."
- Alice didn't think that proved it at all: however she went on. "And how do you know that you're mad?"
- "To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?"
- "I suppose so," said Alice
- "Well, then, " the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."
- "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
- "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
- "I don't much care where –" said Alice.
- "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
- "– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
- "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Cheshire Cat character description
- BBC article about the Croft carving
- An article on the Grappenhall carving
- Compilation of the possible origins of the Cheshire Cat
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