Character Cats!

Cats with personality - in books and in real life

If you’ve ever lived with cats you know they excel in personality. It’s not hard to imagine stories where they are main characters. Look at Archy and Mehitabel or The Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland; Garfield!

A few years ago, I created some Character Cats. One of them was Constanze Mozart in the play, Amadeus.

Constanze Mozart in the play Amadeus by Peter Shaffer.

All such creations are very much a part of the artists’ and writers’ imaginations. But they could easily have been inspired by real-life companion cats with character.

I asked Amy, a veterinarian who has had several cats, to choose two of them and describe their personalities. I found that she herself was very much a part of their lives!

The first cat she chose to write about was mostly black with some white.

Dew-Dew was sweet and always seemed grateful to me for taking her in from the wild. She always wanted to be with me and on my lap at all times to get as much affection as she could, still purring even when she was asleep.

She was smart and strong-willed when she was determined. She was patient enough to foster 2 kittens and treat them like her daughters, even charging a dog that had his attention on one of them.

She was a wonderfully loving companion. Her most challenging trait was that she was always hungry, always trying to find ways to get to the other cats’ food bowls.

Matty was a lean, orange and white tabby, very different from Dew-Dew. Amy says,

Matty was smart, curious and outgoing. She enjoyed our time spent exploring together. I felt I was able to communicate with her, almost like she knew what I was saying.

Some of her favorite things were hanging out with me in the garden, exploring all parts of the house and including all shelves and closets, balancing on top of doors and making caves out of blankets or a suitcase. I once found her sitting inside of a small (empty) bird cage; she had squeezed herself through the tiny door and looked proud to be inside.

Her only negative trait was that she would attack her sister if she saw another cat through the window.

Dew-Dew and Matty, mother and adopted daughter

I wonder if some literary characters could have been inspired by real cats such as Dew-Dew and Matty, perhaps indirectly. Like us, cats express humor, caring, kindness, determination and curiosity, and they get into fixes out in the world.

Below are six characters from fiction that I’ve re-imagined as cats, along with some of what they said.

Anna Karenina in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: “You don’t mean to say so! How delicious!”

Heathcliff in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights: “It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “Who wants to go to town?” demanded Daisy insistently. Gatsby’s eyes floated towards her. “Ah,” she cried. “You look so cool.”

Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’ The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: “Nothing shall provoke me to Anger,” answered Don Quixote; “Speak freely and without any circumlocution.”

Emma in Jane Austen’s Emma: ”Dear Miss Wodehouse! only think. I thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do.”

Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick; or, The Whale: “Aye. aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.”

If you happen to know a cat with one of these literary personalities (or predicaments), please Comment!

Thank you, Amy, for your words about Dew-Dew and Matty, and their photo!

All illustrations are original, by Deda Edney.