It’s Like This, Cat is a coming-of-age story about a boy who adopts a cat. 14 year old Dave Mitchell, after an argument with his father “Pop”, a lawyer , goes to Aunt Kate’s house and gets a cat, whom he just calls Cat. Cat got on well, without much complaining from Pop. Cat then gets into a cage at the Gramercy Park cellar for unknown reasons. A boy named Tom Ransom gets Cat out of the cage. The newspaper next morning says that the cellar had been robbed the previous day, but Tom is later caught trying to return the suitcase that he had stolen after learning that it is full of valuables. Dave writes a letter to Tom. Dave and his friend Nick then go to Coney Island, where Nick gets interested in two girls, while a third one, Mary, was genuinely interested in Cat. Later, the two girls want to go to a movie, and Nick convinces Dave to come. The movie didn’t go so well for Dave because of the girls, and Dave and Nick have a fight when they get home. Nick does not appear for the rest of the book. Dave and Tom go to the same island and Tom introduces him to his friend Hilda. At the end, everyone makes a toast to Cat, which is the main reason why Dave met Tom.
This story is somewhat similar to Because of Winn-Dixie in idea. It’s still about an animal — this time a cat instead of a dog — who ends up making friends for its owner. While it only helps Dave make two new friends (Tom and Mary), it helps strengthen a lot of previous relationships, like with his family, and also helps a lot of others as well (including maybe Nick, who got introduces to two new girls), as well as Pop, who becomes less grumpy and gets into less arguments with Dave. This goes on to show that, even when people only have one friend that may not even be human, they can go on to develop human friends, partly because Cat is, well, such a cat. These small things like Cat just nosing around, sometimes getting stuck in this cage at Gramercy’s, helped Dave get introduced to Tom. Cat also helped Dave get introduced to Mary and hurt his relationship with Nick, but it’s probably Nick at fault here because he just goes around with two girls.
Humans are animals. Not just scientifically, but in terms of behavior as well. A lot of adolescents, at least depicted in stories, behave somewhat similarly to animals like Cat. Cat is a cat. Cats are independent (which is why they don’t need as much care) but not totally independent, and they rely on their owners for protection, love, and resources like food and water. They also get into fights sometimes, perhaps just because of instinct and because they descended from tigers, and they mostly need humans to pull them out of the fights before they get seriously injured (for example, Cat was quite nearly dead from a fight with another cat). They also get stressed out a lot (touched on in Letters From Obedience School) and can actually get sick or even die from shock, such as a fight or a dog chasing after them so that they huddle up on top of the fire escape (as well as a lot of the other questionable things that Ike has done in that book). Dave is like that too. He is independent, and runs out of the house a lot after arguments with Pop. He is stressed out by meeting new people, and quite nearly driven insane from his last encounter with Nick, but he reconciles with Pop and still gets in trouble from time to time.
People develop a lot through their lives. There are eight stages of psychosocial development, at least according to one very popular model: Infancy, early childhood, preschool, late childhood, adolescence, young adult, maturity, and old age. Adolescence is one of the most important (though maturity probably is more important). It is the stage where the individual rapidly matures, though finding new hobbies or interests may be harder and is more devoted to in the previous stage of life. They also are much more independent, so it is harder to control them and therefore teach any old qualities that still may be around.
It’s Like This, Cat is a delightful coming-of-age story that is a fantastic touch on New York in the 1960s. It touches on independence, dependence, and the making and breaking of relationships. It’s about a boy and a cat — but it’s much more. It’s about a boy and a boy, it’s about love, about friendship. It’s a reminder that, when you have a cat, you have a cat and then some, and then you have all that and you have a cat. A thing as simple as a cat can be an interest of eternity, and can give you a lot more than the initial cat. It’s not about having a cat — it’s about making the most of a cat. Both the cat and Winn-Dixie were about as momentous as getting a bag of chips from the store, but each story was more momentous than the last.
Bình luận