Adaptations of Puss in Boots
Puss in Boots is a European folktale, collected by Charles Perrault in 1697 his Contes de ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose Tales) as The Master Cat, and earlier in 1634, by Giambattista Basile as Gagliuso.
Plot synopsis
The division of property after a miller's death left his youngest son with nothing but the granary cat. Disappointed, the son already contemplated eating the animal so that he would not die of hunger, but the cat turned out to be quite resourceful, and said to him: "You have nothing else to do Master but to give me a bag and get a pair of boots made for me, and you shall see that you have not so bad a portion in me as you imagine." The son did not think much of it but decided to humour him anyway. The cat, now gallantly booted, with the bag tied around his neck, immediately set off to a nearby warren and caught a rabbit. So his grand scheme was set in motion, as he went to the palace and presented his catch to the king:
"I bring you, Sire," said he, "a rabbit from the warren of the Marquis de Carabas" for so Puss had named the miller's youngest son. With the gift of a brace of partridges and other small game, always from the Marquis de Carabas, Puss-in-Boots was soon in a position to know when the king and his beautiful daughter would be travelling by the river road.
"If you will do as I tell you," said Puss to his master, "your fortune is made. You have only to go and bathe in the river at the spot which I shall point out to you. Leave the rest to me."
Thus ensued the famous moment, the turn in the fable, when Puss cried out "Help! help! the Marquis de Carabas is drowning!" After Puss explained that robbers made off with the Marquis' valuable clothes when the young man was trying to bathe (to explain why the miller's son had no such clothes), the miller's son, stark naked, was wrapped in royal robes and set off in the king's own coach, as the fable unfolded with Perrault's characteristic aplomb and droll wit.
The cat then sped ahead of the King's party and made his way to the lands of a powerful ogre. To the reapers who were working his lands, he said: "Good people, you who are mowing, if you do not tell the King that the meadow you mow belongs to my Lord Marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as small as herbs for the pot!" When the coach of the King passed the reapers by, and His Majesty inquired as to who owned these lands, they all answered "the Marquis of Carabas, my Lord!".
Meanwhile the cat arrived at the ogre's palace and requested audience. The guards, baffled by the appearance of the talking cat, opened the gate immediately and led him to their master. When they were seated, the cat said to him: "I have been assured, that you have the gift of being able to change yourself into all sorts of creatures you have a mind to; you can, for example, transform yourself into a lion, or elephant, and the like." Flattered, the ogre told him it was true, and transformed into a roaring lion on the spot to demonstrate his abilities. The cat then challenged the ogre to transform into a very small animal, "a mouse for example." Eager to impress his guest, the ogre responded by turning into a mouse, but no sooner than he had transformed, the cat caught him by his tail and swallowed him in whole.
He then claimed the ogre's palace as a home for the newly-made Marquis and received the King with his daughter. In the end the Marquis got the princess, and "Puss became a personage of great importance, and gave up hunting mice, except for amusement."
Analysis
According to the Aarne and Thompson classification system of folktales, Puss in Boots is of the type 545B, The Cat as Helper.
Despite its popularity, the dubious morals of the story, or in fact the absence of them, has traditionally made the fairy tale less appealing to analyse than other stories of the time. Compared to the rich materials provided in Sleeping Beauty or Bluebeard, Puss in Boots is considerably more lighthearted in tone. Perrault was certainly known for his moralist tendencies, but if indeed there is a lesson to be learned from Puss in Boots, it seems to be that trickery and deceit pays off more rapidly (and handsomely) than hard work and talent does.
To some readers today, an ethically discordant note is struck by the cat threatening the peasants who work for the ogre, bullying them into saying that they work for the Marquis de Carabas. In a modern version, Puss in Boots instead strikes a deal with the peasants that if they call themselves the people of the Marquis de Carabas, then he, the cat, will free them from the tyranny of the cruel ogre.
Adaptations
As pictured above, Gustave Doré's illustrated version is well known for capturing the gently satirical tone of the story.
In 1797 German writer Ludwig Tieck published Der gestiefelte Kater, a dramatic satire based on the Puss in Boots tale.
The Russian composer César Cui (of French ancestry) composed a short children's opera on this subject in 1913. This operatic Puss in Boots was first performed in Rome in 1915 and has been something of a repertory item in Germany since at least the 1970s.
A live action direct-to-video movie adaptation was made in 1988, starring Christopher Walken as Puss and Jason Connery as the miller's son.
Plaza Entertainment released an animated direct-to-video movie called Puss in Boots in 1999.
Puss in Boots appeared as a character in the movie Shrek 2 (with the voice of Antonio Banderas). Apparently, the cat is considered the obvious choice for assassinating Shrek, who is an ogre, because Puss has killed a notorious ogre before. However, he does not try any devious tricks this time, but makes an open frontal assault on Shrek, although his tactic making an enemy lower his defences by taking on an innocent look like a forlorn kitten is also extremely effective. He is also Spanish instead of French—El Gato con Botas instead of Le Chat Botte. This is meant to strike a parallel with Zorro, as the character imitates Zorro's mannerisms.
In the furry comic book, Xanadu, the main male hero, Tabbe Le Fauve, is a cat modeled after Puss in Boots with a strong influence of Errol Flynn's typical swashbuckler character.