Cats

In The Naming of Cats, Cats are more than creatures identified by human labels: their names mark a boundary between social recognition and an inward life humans cannot fully access. The poem’s three-name scheme makes that limit central to its account of feline identity.

Identity and Naming

The poem presents naming as a serious matter rather than a casual game, and sets out three distinct kinds of name. First comes the everyday name used by a cat’s family, with Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, and James offered as examples. A second kind consists of individual names such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, Coricopat, Bombalurina, and Jellylorum; these names, the poem stresses, belong to only one cat each. It associates this layer of naming with feline bearing: the name helps a cat keep its tail upright, spread its whiskers, and cherish its pride.

Beyond both humanly used kinds lies a name that people cannot discover. The cat knows this final name but will never confess it, so the poem grants the animal a private identity that remains outside human knowledge. Its account of a cat in profound meditation turns that privacy into an image of inward attention: the cat’s mind dwells on its own name, described through the paradox of what is at once ineffable and effable, before resolving into an inscrutable singular name. The three-name rule for cats thus moves from public household familiarity, through individual distinction, to a self-known identity that resists human possession.

Cats as a Cast of Contrasting Types

The book’s other poems turn its broad subject into a company of named characters whose habits and exploits differ sharply. The Rum Tum Tugger is introduced as a curious cat whose preferences run against expectation: offered pheasant, he would rather have grouse, and given a house, he would prefer a flat. His comic contrariness makes feline individuality a matter of behavior as well as identity.

In Growltiger’s Last Stand, a cat who travels on a barge becomes the center of a violent, theatrical episode. On a peaceful summer night, the barge lies at Molesey beneath the moon; later, Gilbert gives a signal, fireworks burst, and a horde swarms aboard. The shift from quiet moonlit setting to sudden boarding gives the feline world a dramatic range, from repose to danger.

Other poems sketch cats through sharply compressed social labels. Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer are introduced as a notorious couple, while The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles and the sudden appearance of the Great Rumpuscat place cats within comic scenes of alarm and confrontation. The closing discussion insists that a dog is a dog and a cat is a cat, then considers the convention that one should not speak to cats until spoken to; its speaker explicitly rejects that rule. Across these varied appearances, Cats are not a single interchangeable kind but a collection of distinct temperaments, reputations, and roles.

Cats in Conflict and Collective Spectacle

The account of Growltiger adds an older grievance to the sudden boarding already described: a Persian and the Siamese Cats regard him with fear because one of the Siamese Cats mauled his missing ear. The episode then puts its lovers’ song under immediate threat. They sing their last duet while facing attackers armed with toasting forks and carving knives; Gilbert’s signal is followed by fireworks and the rush aboard. After the encounter, a day of celebration is commanded in Bangkok, carrying the conflict beyond the barge into public festivity.

In the account of the battle between the Pekes and the Pollicles, feline presence takes another form: a dramatic interruption. Neighbors, frightened by the commotion, begin calling the Fire Brigade; then the Great Rumpuscat stalks out of a small basement flat, his eyes blazing like fireballs. The entrance turns neighborhood alarm into a set-piece appearance, making the cat a spectacle whose arrival can dominate a scene of collective disorder.

Feline Time and Collective Life

The cats’ lives are not organized solely around human households or the episodes that make them famous. The Jellicle Cats rest and conserve their energy in readiness for the Jellicle Moon and the Jellicle Ball, placing anticipation and communal celebration within their own recurring calendar. The brief image gives feline life a rhythm that humans observe but do not direct: stillness is purposeful preparation for an occasion belonging to the cats.

That contrast broadens the book’s portrait of Cats. Individual names and conspicuous exploits make particular animals recognizable, while the gathering gives them a shared life beyond any one character’s reputation. Cats appear as subjects of inward thought, varied conduct, conflict, and collective ritual—not merely as household companions, but as beings with identities and occasions of their own.