The Authors' Spin on Fairy Tales

The only obvious relationship I could see between the Grimm’s “The Poor Miler’s Boy and the Cat” and Carter’s “Puss-in-Boots” was that both stories featured strong-willed cats “running the show”, coming to the aid of the male human characters, helping them attain specific goals. The Grimm’s version, I believe, could be what we, in modern western culture, would consider an actual fairy tale, whereas Carter's version would not. The inclusion of the talking cats mixed with hyper-sexualization makes it difficult to place this tale.

In ABG, Tatar references Bottigheimer’s statement that “nearly every image and metaphor in ‘The Poor Miller’s Boy and the Cat’ can be read erotically” (Tatar 346). I didn’t interpret it that way. I guess, anyone could let his/her mind “go there”, but in my opinion, the story, even if it’s just on the surface, is innocent enough for a child audience, particularly when compared to Carter’s version.

Undoubtedly, Bettelheim would select the Grimm’s version of the story to read to children. Carter’s version is very likely even a lil’ too spicy for some adults, although it is the most humorous and light-hearted of her stories that we’ve read for this class. I think what makes Carter’s tale seem so blatantly sexual and/or shocking is probably our expectation that by the title, Puss-in-Boots, we expect a cute little fairy tale. But isn’t what we see on TV and in movies, hear in music, or read in novels, just as sexually blatant, if not more so, but is accepted as “pop culture”? Despite the sexual content of the tale, Carter does a good job of playing on words, which keeps the tale from being as raw as it could’ve be.

I would not think that Carter was trying to move the tales back to their original forms. However, her statement during an interview (thanks, Stuart, for the link) that “the stories in the Bloody Chamber are very firmly grounded in the Indo-European popular tradition” (Katsavos) indicates otherwise. So, if her version of the story is close to the original tale, the Grimm’s must have made some major revisions to their story, which would actually mean that their story would be almost unrecognizable, compared to previous versions of the tale.