Can you explain the poem "Cat!" by Eleanor Farjeon?
The poem describes a dog chasing a cat up a tree. The persona the poet takes is that of a dog, so the entire poem is written from the dog's point of view and in the dog's own words.
The first line of the poem is simply, "Cat!" We can imagine a dog out in the yard and suddenly spying a cat. "Atter her, atter her" is probably just another way to say, "After her!" either in a dialect or in rushed speech. If you say the words out loud, they sound like a panting dog, and we get the idea that the dog breaks into a run here.
Why doesn't the dog like the cat? It is a "sleeky flatterer"—that is, one that can't be trusted. Cats have a less direct way of seeking attention from humans compared to dogs, who directly ask for love from their owners. The dog, however, sees the mean side of the cat; it is a "spitfire chatterer" when it hisses and meows. These are reasons enough for the dog to want to "scatter her."
The next stanza provides the dog's internal commands to himself. "Git her" means "get her." As the dog chases the cat, he intersperses commands with negative descriptions of the cat: "Whiskery spitter!" and "Green-eyed scratcher!" and "Slathery Slithery Hisser." Slathery and slithery probably refer to the sound of spit as the cat hisses.
"Run till you're dithery, hithery, thithery" suggests that the cat is leading the dog on a circuitous route during this chase. The dog is feeling "dithery"—that is, mixed up—as he chases her hither and thither. "Pfitts! pfitts!" is the sound of the cat hissing. "Spitch! Spatch!" is either the sound, the motion, or the feeling of the cat scratching. It seems as if the cat has turned to face the dog and lashes out with its claws while hissing. "Scritching" is the sound and/or motion of the cat's claws latching onto the bark of the tree and climbing upwards. The cat continues to hiss, and the dog barks. The dog then turns away. He has banished the cat up the tree—for now, anyway.
This is a fun poem that uses a lot of onomatopoeia—words that sound like the sound being described. Some of the onomatopoeic words are already in our language, like "hiss" and "spits." But Farjeon has made up plenty of her own interesting words, which we call neologisms. By imagining what is happening in the poem and paying attention to what these made-up words sound like, we can figure out what they mean. Farjeon has crafted a poem that brings a common scene to life by using a dog's persona, onomatopoeia, and neologism.
Can you explain the poem "Cat!" by Eleanor Farjeon?
Step one in understanding "Cat!" is to find out what "atter" means! According to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary available at Dictionary.com, the word "atter" refers to poison or venom other corrupt biological matter. If you combine this information with the last five lines of the poem,
Wuff! Wuff!
Scat,
Cat!
That's
That!
things begin to make a bit of sense. Instead of a human speaker, the poetic voice is that of what is accustomed to articulating "Wuff! Wuff!"--a dog. So "Cat!" is the reaction and experience of a dog encountering a cat.
The first stanza describes the dog's opinion of the cat, which is that it is poisonous venom--not a good opinion, at all. Line 4 clearly states what the dog wishes to accomplish in this encounter: "Scatter her! Scatter her!" Again, not good for the cat. The next 6 lines describe the dog's efforts in the chase culminating in "Catch her, catch her!"
What follows is the dog's reaction to their encounter. He defines the cat in terms of its green-eyed scratching, pfft-ing, escaping, and running. With "Pfft! Pfft!" the dog has the cat cornered again, which deserves another comment from the dog on its scratching: "Can't she scratch!"
The cat then claws its way to safety up a sycamore tree,
Scritching the bark
Of the sycamore-tree,
She's reached her ark
And's hissing at me
This, the dog is willing to accept as a victory and ends with a "Wuff! Wuff!" and a "Scat cat!" then leaves with a triumphal "That's that!" It's lovely the way that Farjeon reinvented English words to come out of the dog's consciousness, like scritiching, spitch, hithery and thithery.
What is the summary of the poem "Cat!" by Eleanor Farjeon?
Eleanor Farjeon's poem "Cat!" can be described as a shape poem. If one were to examine the choice of line length, over the course of the poem, he or she would notice that the line lengths vary greatly. Some lines include only one word, while others total four words. This is important because it describes the actions of a cat: from crouching away from a dog (signified by a one word line "Wuff") to climbing a tree (the longest line signifying the top of the cat's world). One can see the cat skittering over the floor, crouching in defense, and climbing to high perches. Essentially, the movement of the poem (the line length) moves as a cat does.
As for summarizing the poem, the meaning is simple. The poem speaks to the daily life of a typical cat. Through analysis, one can assume that the narrator has come in contact with a cat she (assumed given the gender of the poet) does not wish around. It is through the closing line that the narrator reveals her intent, to get rid of the cat:
Scat,
Cat!
That's
That!
The narrator wishes the cat to be gone, denoted by the "scat," and after the cat leaves, nothing more needs to be done ("that's that!).
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