How Stories Came To Earth, And Master Cat Or Puss In Boots

Humankind rose to the top of the animal kingdom throughout history because of superior intelligence. The ability to overcome a stronger foe with cunning and intelligence is often reflected in our culture. One popular form of cleverness in stories is trickery. Trickery is the ability to deceive someone, which often requires the trickster to be clever. Trickster tales often correlate with each other because common literary elements are shared. “How Stories Came to Earth” by Kaleki, “Coyote Steals Fire” by Alfonso Ortiz, and “Master Cat or Puss in Boots” by Charles Perrault are all cultural trickster tales that have similar literary elements. “Coyote Steals Fire”, “How Stories Came to Earth”, and “Master Cat, or Puss in Boots” all share anthropomorphism

One of the cat’s most apparent and visible traits is that he wears wears boots like humans. The cat shows an ability to construct and make social relations, which lets him lead to the success of his master by taking advantage of certain people such as the king to make Marquis de Carabas become nobility. The cat also displays an element of cleverness in his trickery. The cat’s attempt to steal the ogre’s castle is successful because of his cleverness. The cat knows the ogre will not accept a request to transform to a small susceptible mouse, so he first request the ogre to become something powerful and large. “[He] was so terrified at seeing a lion before him that he instantly scurried up to the gutters on the roof”(Perrault 50). This display of fear shows the ogre that the cat is not curious and not looking for the ogre’s weakness, so when the cat requests for him to be a mouse, he accepts to becomes a mouse. Then the cat eats him and steals the castle. The cleverness to trick the ogre is a quality of anthropomorphism that helps the cat steal the castle. The purpose of the cat actions is out of greed and self preservation.“[The] cat became a great lord and never again had to run after mice”(Perrault 50). The cat’s greed is a human quality, and the purpose out of the his actions are only to live a better life for him, and he does not show sympathy

The cat threatens peasants by telling them “each one of you will be cut into little pieces until you look like chopped meat”(Perrault 49) unless they comply with is terms. The cat steals a castle from an ogre by making the ogre shape-shift into a mouse and eating the mouse. By stealing and eventually taking advantage of the stolen goods, he is able to make a prosperous life for him and his master. He and his master are the sole beneficiaries to the crimes the cat commits. Unlike the other stories, the only gains made were selfish. The actions are much less justifiable because he stole with no benefit to