Cats and mice are natural born enemies, so what happens when
they form a partnership in a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm? The mouse gets
eaten, of course!
While our modern sentiments want to defy stereotypes and recast the villain as a hero or a misunderstood outcast, that was not so in the Middle Ages when Cat and Mouse in Partnership was first told. Things were a little more black and white back then, at least in the world of their fairy tales where lessons needed to be crystal clear.
Cat and Mouse by Christian Rohlfs
If it looks like a cat and purrs like a cat, so to speak, then it’s a cat all right. And if you’re a mouse, then you’d better stay away. But the little mouse in our story doesn’t. Let’s take a look at the plot and figure out why.
PLOT SUMMARY
Exposition – The
Background
A cat meets a mouse.
Inciting Incident –
The Problem
And the cat says all manner of nice things to the mouse in
order to win her friendship.
Rising Action – The
Build-up
The unlikely pair then buys a pot of fat together and stores
it in the church for safekeeping until winter. Meanwhile, they move in
together, but the cat secretly covets the pot of fat and contrives to have it
all to himself.
Three times he lies to the mouse and says that he must go to the church to stand as godfather for a newborn kitten.
The first time, he licks off the top layer of fat. When he
comes home, the mouse inquires about the baptism and asks the kitten’s name.
The cat says the kitten was christened “Top-Off.” Though an unusual name, the
mouse does not give it much thought.
The second time, the cat eats down to the middle of the pot.
Again, he gives the make-believe kitten a fake name, calling him “Half-Gone.”
The name worries the mouse, but she does not press the matter.
Climax – The Breaking
Point
The third time, the cat devours the rest of the pot and says
the kitten was christened “All-Gone.” The mouse grows even more worried but
still does not realize the cat is lying.
Falling Action – The
Unraveling
When winter comes and food grows scarce, the mouse goes to
the church with the cat and discovers the pot of fat empty.
Anti-resolution – Not
So Happily Ever After
Before she can finish accusing the cat, he eats her up, and
so ends their partnership!
PLOT ANALYSIS
The mouse should have known better than to trust a cat. So
why did she? Was she worried about being prejudicial? Did she just want to give
him a chance?
Of course not! Those explanations are too modern to apply,
not to mention they are not supported by the text, which says very plainly that
the cat tricked the mouse through flattery. The mouse should have trusted her
instincts, not her vanity. As a result, she misplaced her trust altogether.
Cat and Mouse in Partnership by Walter Crane
The mouse was happy to keep the company of the cat because he boosted her ego. Yet, the cat was biding his time to eat her all the while. As such, neither was really friend to the other. Theirs was a partnership of convenience and met a certain death when that convenience, the pot of fat, ran out.
Neither the cat nor the mouse emerges a likable character.
One is a foolish victim, and the other is a cunning predator.
CONCLUSION
Naturally, many middle school students like the ones I teach
can readily relate to both characters. What seems to be a true friendship in
sixth grade turns out to be merely a partnership of convenience in seventh. If
left unchecked, it meets an unhappy ending by eighth.
That sounds rather daunting! But fear not, the Brothers Grimm have sound advice to offer. Simply put, trust your instincts. It’s good to give people a chance, but don’t be fooled by flattery or popularity or something else superficial. You can usually see through the façade if you can get over your ego.
And finally, just as we need to safeguard ourselves from
cats, we also need to make sure we don’t turn into a cat.
First image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Second image in the public domain
There is something about reading fairy
tales that is quintessentially classical. After all, classical
education considers the great stories of Western culture one of its core
foundations. So if at the end of a school day I have read a fairy tale with my
students, I am usually pleased. But, if that’s where it ends, I am all the more
disappointed.
Rich as they are for the moral imagination, I try to draw as much from them as possible. Here is a breakdown of some of my favorite extension activities to do with students.
DISCOURSE
Socratic Discussion
A classical mainstay, Socratic discussion is at the heart of
my approach to studying fairy tales. We discuss the stories in small groups and
as a whole class, often rearranging the desks and chairs so we form one large
circle or several smaller ones. This discursive format helps students break
down the plot and unpack its core symbols.
I guide the discussions but play a limited role in order to
encourage active engagement from the students. Plus, it lets them tease out the
ideas that they find most
interesting. In this way, students feel a greater sense of ownership in the
discussions and make more personal contributions.
Disputation
This is a really fun one that serves as a natural outgrowth of Socratic discussion. Disputation involves debating key aspects of the story, typically those that pose moral dilemmas. For example, in reading Cat and Mouse in Partnership, we might debate whether the mouse should have formed a partnership with the cat. Or when reading Cinderella, we might debate whether or not it is a good story for little kids.
Sometimes our debates are very formal with preparation and
regulated rounds. Other times, they are of a more impromptu style. Either way,
the students get very animated and impassioned.
CREATIVE WRITING
Plot Reinvention
Another exercise I really like is plot reinvention. First,
students have to thoroughly understand the original plot of the story, meaning
they can express the inciting incident, climax, and resolution for themselves
much as I have done in this blog series. Once they can do this, they choose an
element to change.
If, for example, the father in Godfather
Deathwere to choose God, then the whole story would change. The
student’s job would be to tell that new story. One of the great things about
this exercise is that it gives students a concrete place to start writing,
which can be very difficult with more open-ended prompts.
Character Reinvention
Character reinvention follows this same principle. What if Little Red Cap were a naughty girl? Or what if the fisherman had a tougher upper lip? Or how about making the youngest sister in Twelve Brothersa real chatter-box?
When students develop a whole new approach to a character, it
affects all of his or her motives and actions and can lead to a different, not
to mention highly entertaining, story altogether.
Working from Art
I also like projecting beautiful paintings or sketches from fairy tales and having students write just one scene based on the picture. This approach is a little more contained than the previous two, so it makes it easier for students to develop sharp, properly formatted dialogue and well-planned narration. As such, it readily doubles as a grammar lesson as well as a creative writing exercise.
Cinderella by John Everett Millais
In preparation for writing a scene for Cinderella, I might depict the painting above by John Everett Millais and prompt students with the following: Describe the moment in time depicted here. What are the character’s thoughts? Words? Actions? Draw your ideas together as a scene from the story. Be sure to include dialogue and narration.
ARTISTIC RENDERING
Reflective Journaling
There are a number of mediums one could use for reflective
journaling, but one I really like is water color. This entails students
painting something they found inspiring in a fairy tale.
After reading The Little Match
Seller, one might paint a wood stove, another a Christmas tree, or even
the little girl flying up to Heaven. Once students have painted their pictures,
they reflect in writing on what they have depicted and why. When that’s done,
they walk around and view everyone else’s journals in what we call a “museum
walk.”
All the while, we play classical music and otherwise
maintain silence. It makes for a very relaxing, thoughtful environment, not to
mention beautiful work.
Story Board
This one is borrowed from the publishing industry wherein editors lay out words on a story board and then contract illustrators to matches them with pictures. I have students do the same thing with a fairy tale.
Their story boards can be very elaborate or more of a quick
sketch, true to the story or reinvented using one of the models above. Either
way, students fine-tune their understanding of the plot and have the
opportunity to do so in an artistic, visual way.
Act Them Out
Most of my students like acting out the fairy tales best of all. I give them liberty to keep or change whatever they want in the plots. For that matter, they can even combine plots as long as it makes sense. Their job is to write the script, memorize it, and present it in a formal production. Ideally, we invite other classes in the school to come and watch.
CONCLUSION
These types of exercises cause students to think deeply about the fairy tales. This is extremely valuable from an educational standpoint, not least because it helps students to really understand the stories and develop their own insights.
It is perhaps even more valuable from a moral standpoint because the lessons can serve as a guide for life’s real-world difficulties. When, for example, they are discerning the nature of a friendship, they can draw from Cat and Mouse in Partnership. They can look to The Mermaidor The Snow Queenwhen trying to understand the true meaning of love. Perhaps they will think about The Emperor’s New Clotheswhen they eventually come to critique politics. Or maybe, they will take heart from The Little Match Sellerin the face of personal suffering, which no doubts awaits everyone at some point or another.
Whatever the case may be, by extending the fairy tales with additional exercises, students come to embody them in a way that will enrich their lives forever. At least that’s my hope.
I once asked my seventh grade class what a fairy tale was, and one student said, “It’s a story that begins with Tinker Bell waving her wand over the Disney Castle.” She was joking, of course, but her words were illuminating.
Many children today associate fairy tales with the magical world of Disney and know little of the literary let alone the historical background behind them. That’s because Disney has a type of cultural monopoly over fairy tales that allows them to dictate storylines (and insert social politics) according to their commercial business preferences.
Some of their changes are small—just have Cinderella’s dad die so he doesn’t seem like such a deadbeat. No big deal to lose one measly character. Some of the changes are big—let Ariel live happily ever after with Prince Eric. Turning the little mermaid into seafoam as punishment for disobeying her father doesn’t exactly make for a box office hit. Other changes are complete transformations. How exactly is Frozen supposed to be based on The Snow-Queen?
I get it. It’s all about the bottom line. And frankly, Disney’s versions are just as authentic as the so-called “originals.” After all, fairy tales come from a long tradition of oral storytelling which allows the teller to add, subtract, stretch, and reinvent as desired. Even Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did that.
(Yup! They didn’t “write” the tales that now bare their name. They actually traveled from town to town collecting and recording stories that were already being told.)
Defining Fairy Tales
So what holds a fairy tale together? What do they all have in common?
When I first started teaching fairy tales, I tried to find a definition to share with my students that would answer those precise questions. Most definitions talked about good conquering evil. That certainly rings true, but Disney’s version of “good” is totally different than, say, Hans Christian Andersen’s.
Let’s return to The Mermaid for a moment, which inspired Disney’s The Little Mermaid. The “goodness” of obedience was swapped out for a modern “goodness” of independence. Throw cultural differences into the mix, and you’re left with an even more ambiguous understanding of what constitutes “good.”
What’s more, most stories boil down to some kind of good versus evil paradigm, so there needs to be something further that sets fairy tales apart from other genres. This is where my student’s playful comment about Tinker Bell comes in handy because it captures the dreamy side of fairy tales and the promise of “happily ever after.” No doubt Disney’s branding with the “magical kingdom” depicts the essence of this.
Putting it all together, I eventually came up with the following definition: a fairy tale is a fanciful, make-believe story that reveals a particular set of values about society and pivots around the rewards of virtue overcoming vice.
Lake Scene with Fairies and Swans by Robert Caney
I like this definition because it allows for differences across time and place (e.g., values which are changeable) while still maintaining a set of universal principals (e.g., virtues which are unchanging). While fairy tales originated in the Middle Ages and are generally set in that time period, they are not constrained by it. Likewise, they are not limited to Western culture.
Just think of the many versions of Cinderella told all over the world. Yeh-Shen, which is a Chinese version, was one of my favorites when I was little. Like the Disney version and the Brothers Grimm version before that, it has the basic “rags to riches” storyline. A major difference, however, is that a magical fish grants Yeh-Shen’s wish to go to the ball. This reflects significant cultural differences in China wherein fish are symbols of good fortune. Nevertheless, the reasons the fish rewards Yeh-Shen are consistent with those of Disney’s Fairy Godmother and the Grimms’ magical tree: Cinderella is being rewarded for her virtues.
Fairy tales are told to bestow lessons and to offer the promise of reward if those lessons are followed. The “happily ever after” motif was a particularly powerful one in the Middle Ages where the vast majority of the population was plagued with hardship. They taught young children that if you live a life of virtue, then you will be rewarded. Of course, that reward was not really expected to be found in an earthly palace but rather in a heavenly one.
Continuing the Tradition
There are countless reasons to study the “original” fairy tales today. They’re enjoyable, for one, but they’re also a lens into the hopes and fears of the common people of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Given how dominated historical accounts of the time were by the affairs of royalty and nobility, fairy tales offer a type of anthropology into the lives of everybody else.
But that’s still not all. Fairy tales give us pause to reflect on our own lives. They remind us that though the world is a scary place wrought with danger, we should take heart. Virtue will prevail, if not in life then in death. As G.K. Chesterton put it,
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” gave new depth to the world of Narnia. When I read it to my five- and six-year-old sons, we felt like part of the crew, searching for the end of the world right along with them. As we sailed further and further into the deep unknown, I kept asking my sons, “Should we keep going?”
Their answer was always a definitive, “Yes!”
With C.S. Lewis as our captain, I knew we were heading somewhere special. While my sons were dying to know what the end of the world would be like, I was happily absorbed in the “sights” along the way and kept questioning them about the nature of the journey itself. I’ll share some of our discussion highlights in the reflection that follows my summary of the story.
THE STORY
The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” begins about a year in our time after the adventure in Prince Caspian, and we find Edmund and Lucy staying with their cousin, Eustace Scrubb, son of Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold. Lucy and Edmund are not particularly happy about this. Susan got to travel to America with their parents because “she was the pretty one,” and Peter was studying for a big exam with help from Professor Kirke. Edmund and Lucy don’t feel merely left out; they feel stuck. Eustace is painfully irritating and constantly trying to get them into trouble. The reasons for his sour temperament are many, but they mostly have to do with a progressive upbringing that has indoctrinated him in “all the wrong books.”
Just as Edmund and Lucy are enjoying a little time alone talking about Narnia, Eustace breaks in on them and starts making fun of them in a superior sort of way that he hardly deserves. Though he knows all sorts of information, it is readily obvious he doesn’t know much of anything actually worth knowing. In the midst of their quarrel, the three children get sucked into a painting of a ship that is hanging on the wall. Lucy and Edmund are thrilled because they immediately realize Narnia magic has hold of them, but Eustace is terrified.
They find themselves struggling to swim in a great ocean beside the very ship they had seen in the picture. With a little help from the crew, they climb on board and recognize Prince Caspian. He has embarked on an expedition to the end of the world where he hopes to find Aslan’s Country. Along the way, he hopes to recover seven lords, once loyal to his father, who had set off on a similar adventure during the false reign of Caspian’s evil Uncle Miraz.
Eustace, in utter disbelief, acts extremely ungrateful to crew for saving him and begins an incessant rant about wanting to go to the English consulate. That, of course, is impossible, so he settles into a cabin below deck and sulks for days and days.
And so begins a story that is more like a series of quests than the other Chronicles. We’ll take them each in order, though it makes for a longer summary than some of the others in this blog series.
The Dawn Treader’s first stop in on the Lone Islands, an archipelago Edmund and Lucy had traveled to during their reign in Narnia and that had been under Narnia’s domain since the days of the White Witch. Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and a danger-loving, talking mouse named Reepicheep decide to paddle a boat to shore ahead of the Dawn Treader and disembark on the far side of the main port. They end up being taken prisoners by a slave trader named Pug. Luckily, a kind man named Lord Bern, who turns out to be one of the seven lords whom Caspian had set out in search of, facilitates their release. From there, Caspian storms the palace and sets things right, leaving Lord Bern to remain as his vassal in charge of the Lone Islands.
They continue Eastward into the unknown for the next several days, and the story begins to focus on Eustace. More bitter than ever about his predicament, he refuses to leave his cabin and journals about his miseries, albeit from a very shallow perspective. When they finally sight land, he wants to get away from everyone in order to avoid helping—the ship needs to be repaired and the supplies replenished. Eustace ends up taking a nap far from the crew and wakes up in the presence of a dragon. Luckily, the dragon dies before his very eyes. But a storm hits, and he seeks shelter in the dragon’s cave. He is amazed to find it full of treasure and puts on a golden bracelet, which had belonged to another of the seven lords—Lord Octesian. He drifts back to sleep only to awaken as a dragon himself.
His miserable existence has gotten that much worse, but he manages to find the crew and convey in his dragon way that he is Eustace. In his new form, Eustace begins to see the world differently and even makes friends with Reepicheep, whom he had previously deplored. Aslan eventually peels off all Eustace’s dragon skin to reveal his human form once more. The crew leaves the island, now dubbed Dragon Island, and presumes the dead dragon was in fact Lord Octesian.
After narrowly escaping a sea serpent, their next stop is on another unchartered island. Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and Reepicheep set off by themselves to explore it and discover Narnian armor by a water bank. They rightly guess it was one of the seven lords, but they have no idea at first what could have happened to him. Next, they discover a life-size statue of a human made of gold at the bottom of a pool. When they try to fish it out, they realize that the water itself can turn things into gold. The statue must have been a person.
No sooner do they realize how dangerous the water is, than they also realize how valuable it is. Caspian and Edmund fight over who has the right to the pool, but then Aslan appears and they come to their senses. Reepicheep aptly names the island Deathwater, and the crew leaves with all haste.
On the next island, they encounter invisible creatures. According to their Chief Voice, a terrible magician has made them ugly, and, since they couldn’t stand the sight of themselves, they found another of his spells and make themselves invisible. The creatures no longer want to be invisible but are now too scared to seek out the magic book because they have not seen the magician in all that time. They worry he is also invisible and could sneak up on them at any minute.
The Chief Voice threatens to kill Caspian’s crew if Lucy doesn’t find the spell for them. She accepts the task and, after a strange dinner with the invisible creatures, makes her way through the magician’s house and into his study. She finds the magic book and becomes absorbed with several spells. She nearly recites one that would make her the most beautiful woman in the world—even more beautiful than Susan—but a small picture of Aslan suddenly appears in the book. His image helps her overcome that temptation and most of the others, and she eventually finds the one to make things visible again. When she does, she sees Aslan in the room with her. He was there all along, but He, too, had been invisible.
Next, she meets the magician, who turns out to be a kind man in the service of Aslan. They look upon the once invisible creatures and see that they are funny looking monopods. Lucy does not think they are ugly at all! Happy at last, the creatures, which are called Dufflepuds, bid Caspian’s crew a fond farewell.
Their voyage takes them next to the Dark Island, which haunts the crew with their worst nightmares. They stay only long enough to rescue a man who had been stranded on the island and terrorized by its darkness for years upon years. His name is Lord Rhoop, and he is another of the seven lords. Sadly, he is but a shell of his former self.
The next stop is an island on which they find an exquisite banquet set before three sleeping men, whom Caspian determines to be the last of the seven lords. Their names are Lords Revilian, Argoz, and Mavramorn. A beautiful maiden appears and explains that the three men had arrived there seven years prior and gotten into a fight about whether to continue their voyage or return home. One of them grabbed a knife, which was the very Knife of Stone the White Witch had once used to kill Aslan, and thus the three men fell asleep.
After the maiden tells this story, her father, a retired star named Ramandu who bears the shape of a human, tells Caspian’s crew that the only way to wake the sleepers is for someone to offer his life in their stead by going to the End of the World and never coming back. Reepicheek is quick to accept this adventure, and Caspian arranges to have Lord Rhoop rest in a peaceful slumber beside his former comrades and so find healing from his nightmares.
The ship travels further East, and the world around them changes. The Sun grows bigger and brighter, and they are able to see far into the distance. The water also becomes clearer, and Reepicheek discovers that it tastes delicious. The crew begins drinking it to sustain them. It has a magical property that fills them so completely they neither thirst nor hunger for anything else. Eventually, the ship is unable to go farther because the ocean is covered with flowers like lilies.
Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and Reepicheek form a smaller party and continue first by boat and eventually on foot. They finally come to the “end” which is marked by a wall of water. There, they must bid farewell to Reepicheek, and they watch him paddle up the wall of water and out of sight. The brave mouse has a smile on his face and knows that he has arrived in Aslan’s Country at last.
Moments later, they see a Lamb and join Him in a simple meal. Then, the Lamb turns into a Lion, and they recognize Him as Aslan. Aslan explains that He has many forms, and He appeared to them as a Lamb just then so they might better recognize Him in their own world, to which they must now return. Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund that they will not be able to return to Narnia again. Like Peter and Susan, they have grown too old. But He comforts them with the knowledge that He will still be with them and lead them into His country. He opens a door in the sky, and Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace walk through and find themselves back in the bedroom from which they had originally departed.
Caspian returns to his crew, marries Ramandu’s daughter, and lives out his days as King. As we’ll see in the next story in The Chronicles of Narnia, his adventures are not quite done.
REFLECTION
C.S. Lewis used lots of spatial imagery in The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” to reveal the infinite nature of Aslan, which is to say God. After I pointed out the imagery to my sons the first few times, they started recognizing it on their own and trying to explain it to me. Though they are little, Lewis’s beautiful images made it relatively simple for them to understand that Aslan’s ways are further and deeper and higher than ours.
Distance
The first motif, distance, was fairly easy to visualize as the “Dawn Treader” traveled farther and farther away from Narnia into the unknown. (The map at the beginning of our edition of the book was especially helpful.) As an adult who had read the story before, I still found myself feeling a little nervous every time the ship would shove off from an island. Like the crew, my sons and I continually wondered how much farther it would take to reach the end of the world. After some particularly difficult adventures along their voyage, we questioned if they had not already gone far enough. Prince Caspian was particularly sensitive to this feeling among his crew and offered them points of return. But thanks to his leadership and the inspiring valor of Reepicheep, they refused to stop short of their destination.
Behind this motif of distance is both the reality of God’s infinite nature and our calling to pursue it without end. This brings us to another question: Did Prince Caspian and his crew reach the end of the world?
The answer, though simple in literal terms is more complex figuratively. Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, Prince Caspian, and Reepicheep did reach the end of Narnia, but as we know from reading The Magician’s Nephew, Narnia is one world among many. Moreover, as we’ll learn from reading The Last Battle, Narnia is only a reflection of Aslan’s Country, which is a world without limits, like Heaven. So in that sense, none of them—not even Reepicheep—reach the end of the True World. Instead, they are merely continuing their journey further and further toward (or into, in the case of Reepeicheep) Aslan’s Country.
Depth
The second motif is depth. It captured our imagination most in relation to Eustace’s dragon-days. As we know, he was brought up so poorly that he knew nothing of dragons, let alone their very existence. That is a little ridiculous on face value, but it is meant to be symbolic.
Since dragons symbolize evil, what Eustace really knows nothing about is evil. Literally, his ignorance of dragons is what lets him get “caught” by one. But figuratively, his ignorance of evil is what makes him so rotten all the time. He had always been like a dragon on the inside, so his physical transformation was merely the final expression of his true character. Luckily, it was also his chance to discover just how real evil is and how it had crept into his very being.
That’s where Aslan comes in. He alone was capable of peeling away all the layers of badness that had built up on Eustace because He alone could see into the depth of Eustace’s heart. Aslan purified Eustace by restoring him to his innermost self, the boy he was made to be at his birth.
Height
Our final motif of height centers on Reepicheep, who reportedly was one of C.S. Lewis’s favorite characters. Small in stature, he is nonetheless larger than life. He was the bravest and most adventurous of the crew. While everyone else was scared to be left behind at the end of the world, he readily volunteered, knowing it to be his destiny.
In his final moments, we saw him paddling up a wall of water that marked the outermost limit of the Narnian world. Not only was that an awesome image for my sons and me to visualize, but it also lifted our thoughts toward the resurrection of the body. Reepicheep literally wentup to Aslan’s Country, showing that his steadfast loyalty to the Lion, most especially in the face of danger, was worth it. Better still, he went up with a smile, making himself a model for the small crew who stood by as witnesses. All of them—even Eustace—want to follow after Reepicheep because his destiny is so spectacular.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Reading The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” was an incredible adventure in itself. It allowed my sons and me to contemplate the Eternal in a way that inspired wonder and awe without the worry and fear that might otherwise accompany it.
Likewise, C.S. Lewis affirmed yet again that God will always be there to help us through the trials of the world and lead us to Heaven if we accept Him as our Captain. With this beautiful understanding in mind, we eagerly looked forward to starting his next book, The Silver Chair.
(Here is another of my six-year-old son’s sentence diagrams, which I instructed him through during our reading of The Chronicles of Narnia. For more on a classical approach to learning grammar, visit my series here.)
