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In Robert Darnton’s “The Great Cat Massacre”, Darnton details a peculiar event in 18th century French history, the Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint - Severin. What is incredibly strange about this event is that, while modern society would consider such an act as a twisted and cruel affront to life, the people of 18th century France, particularly the workers, found great humor in it. Understanding the joke of this twisted event, Darnton says, makes it possible “to ‘get’ a basic ingredient of artisanal culture under the Old Regime” (Darnton 78).
In this case, in order to understand the joke, it must be “unpacked” with each part of the joke understood for what it represents and what it refers to.
In unpacking the joke, the first aspect that must be examined is the victim of the massacre itself. The first question that must be asked is: why would the workers be driven to act, maim, and kill innocent animals as if they were the worst of criminals? The answer lies in not what the cats did or did not do but rather what the cats represented.
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There are multiple layers of meaning and significance afforded to the cats. At the most local level, these cats were loved by their masters, “the master’s wife adored them, especially la grise…her favorite” (Darnton 76). Therefore, this massacre of cats “served as an oblique attack on the master and his wife” (Darnton 78). This leads to the second question, of all ways to obliquely attack the master and his wife, why choose to kill the cats and not commit some other form of attack? The answer lies in what cats represented to the larger culture; how cats were viewed by society and what role they played in art and literature.
Cats have been viewed with suspicion and fascination throughout history, “there is an indefinable je ne sais quoi about cats, a mysterious something that has fascinated mankind since the time of the ancient Egyptians” (Darnton 89). Cats are given a special role, “they have ritual value” (Darnton 90) in many cultures. Many different animals have such an “ambiguous ontological position” (Darnton 89) but cats, in particular, seem to be associated with the occult. Cats were associated with witchcraft. Folkloric stories and art works portrayed cats as shadowy and shifty creatures lurking in the dark. Cats, in some respects, were seen as a type of incarnate evil. Moreover, unlike modern day where animal cruelty is seen as a barbaric act, “the torture of animals, especially cats, was a popular amusement throughout early modern Europe” (Darnton 90). The historical and social acceptability of animal cruelty combined with the cat’s association with the occult made cats an acceptable target for an oblique attack against the master. Destroying any other possession would be seen as either wasteful of material resources or as too great of an affront against the master.
The final question that must be asked is, why would the workers desire to commit an attack against the master and his wife? The short answer is that the workers were treated badly. They faced tough work conditions, little chance for advancement, and little to no self-determination. They had a nostalgic view of the past where their socio-economic value was greater. This state of their personal affairs, when contrasted with the posh treatment of the master’s cats, angered the workers. It drove them to commit some sort of affront to get back at the masters.
This sort of piece by piece analysis is what is necessary to understand such an event as the great cat massacre. What appears to be a barbaric act to us in the modern era can only be understood in context of all the factors involved. It requires a wide-ranging analysis involving the meaning of every ‘part’ of the story whether it is explicitly a symbol or not. In a way, everything is a symbol—every object represents some sort of hidden or connotative meaning that is attached to the objects essence. All sources must be considered in order to extract this meaning. Historical narratives won’t necessarily explain what many objects of the past represented to the people that used them. So artworks, legends, limericks, and other cultural artifacts are needed to piece together the perspective of past cultures.
This sort of analysis of history is not what historians such as Marx would consider useful. For Marx, the principles of economics don’t change just because the culture views cats one way or another. Marx might have recognized the great cat massacre as an event worth mentioning, if only for its obscurity and peculiarity. But as to the great cat massacres’ historical worth, consequentiality, or importance to society—Marx would find it dubious at best. Cultural history, however, is more wholesome and more academically honest than Marxist history. Cultural history moves away from simply knowing the ‘what’ and ‘when’ of an event—it also develops an honest understanding of each agent’s perspective, opinion, and world view to piece together the ‘why’ of historical events. Other historical methods, such as Marx’s, are more rooted in conjecture as to the ‘why’ of historical events.
That being said, cultural history is not an effective manner of communicating what occurred in history. Much of history is causal in the sense that one event leads to, or allows for, the next event. A causal understanding of history is critically important if only for the fact that to know the ‘why’ of history one must first know the ‘what’ of history. For example, to know that the great cat massacre could be seen as a foreshadowing of the French revolution, one must know what the French revolution is. Such ‘what’ questions of history are far to broad for cultural history, at least in light of the examples that were read for the seminar. Taken as a whole, cultural history is a worthwhile endeavor in understanding the point of view and position of all of the agents involved in history. In looking a history through the eyes of those that did it, one can avoid the temptation to judge history based on hindsight and modern moral values. People of the past can be judged more fairly in accordance to what they knew, believed, and were, in practicality, able to or not to do.
The Great Cat Massacre: Twisted And Complicated Novel. (2024, Feb 16). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-great-cat-massacre-twisted-and-complicated-novel-essay
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