UNIT 5: "Catskin"- Joseph Jacobs

So the infamous maid and her notorious glass slipper was in under investigation for Unit 5. Though Catskin did not necessarily have a glass slipper, she did have four unique outfits- three of which were á la mode, made of feathers, silver, and gold, and the one remaining was designed with a distinct flair of repugnancy and cat skin. This vulnerable heroine of her own destiny was born to an acquiescently compliant mother and an intolerant father that rejected her as soon as he found out that her reproductive organs did not protrude outside of her body but, like most girls, were internal. After her father spitefully approved the first nasty, rough, old man who pursued her at fifteen, she listened to a hen-maid’s solicited advice and put her suitor through seemingly impossible obstacles in an effort to ensure that she would not have to oblige herself to his desires. However, after he exceedingly surmounted each of these obstacles that yielded her wardrobe, she fled to the ends of the surrounding woods, running until she stumbled across a castle. Leaving her wardrobe at the gates, she entered the castle in her cat skin bodysuit where she would be employed as a scullion until being noticed by a prince. Finally after a series of encounters, she wed the prince and all was tranquil until her son provoked her longing for her parents. Her husband agreed to go on a search for her parents where she finds her father whom shared her sense of longing and they lived happily ever after in the castle. As unfamiliar as certain elements of this version of the cinderella seemed, it was equally as invigorating. In my personal interpretation, Jacob’s realization of this tale type coalesces into a thematic crossroad between abandonment and oppression permeated with oedipal undertones. True to the nature of the tale, we view this crossroad and the protagonist through a lens of misfortune. However despite the strength of adversity ascribed to this lens, I occasionally found myself struggling to feel genuine sympathy for her circumstances until the final scenes- when it was obvious the extent to which her family’s dysfunction had affected her. Women’s value in society and role in the family unit is implicitly explored vicariously through Jacob’s deliberate infusion of vulnerability throughout the entirety of the story. She isn't a valiant heroine. In each stage of the plots progression, she seems like more like a meek lamb at the mercy of a societal hierarchy than an inspiring protagonist in the midst of an uphill, life threatening battle. That Catskin still had a repressed longing for the approval of her father yet she seemed rather unbothered by the news of her mother’s death in spite of her upbringing speaks to a father’s importance in a girls development. Regardless of the circumstances, Catskin lived happily ever after not when she wed the prince, or birthed her child, but after she had reconciled her relationship with her estranged father. For me, all of the steps that led her to that castle were a cascade of a dominos effect that began when her father rejected her and ended when she filled the void that her father dug so long before. This is one affliction that was present in England’s social landscape in the 1800’s when this tale was conceived and today in 2015 when I discovered it for the first time which makes this tale not only relevant but significant. Congratulations Catskin, you surely worked for it.