Who is the Cheshire Cat? Character quotes. Who invented Cheshire
“What are those sounds over there?” asked Alice, nodding at the very secluded thickets of some pretty vegetation at the edge of the garden.
“And these are miracles,” explained the Cheshire Cat indifferently.
“And.. And what are they doing there,” the girl asked, inevitably blushing.
“As expected,” the cat yawned. “They happen”...
So who is this? Cheshire cat?
The Cheshire Cat (English: Cheshire Cat, also Maslenitsa Cat translated by V. Nabokov) is a character in Lewis Carroll’s book “Alice in Wonderland.” A constantly grinning cat who can, at his own request, gradually dissolve into thin air, leaving only a smile at parting. Alice is occupied not only with conversations that amuse her, but also with sometimes overly annoying philosophical speculations.
The only character who is a “countryman” of the author is a native of Cheshire.
In the original version of Lewis Carroll's book, the Cheshire Cat was not present as such. It appeared only in 1865. In those days, the expression “smiles like a Cheshire cat” was often used. There are different versions of the origin of this saying. Here are two of them.
In Cheshire, where Carroll was born, a hitherto unknown painter painted grinning cats over tavern doors. Historically they were grinning lions (or leopards), but few people saw lions in Cheshire.
The second explanation (Notes and Queries, No. 55, Nov. 16, 1850) states that the appearance of smiling cats was once given to the famous Cheshire cheeses, the history of which goes back more than nine centuries.
In The Book of Fictional Creatures, in the section “The Cheshire Cat and the Killkenny Cats,” Borges writes:
In English there is an expression “grin like a Cheshire cat” (to grin sardonically like a Cheshire cat). Various explanations have been offered. One is that in Cheshire they sold cheeses that looked like the head of a smiling cat. The second is that “even cats laughed at the high rank of the small county of Cheshire.” Another thing is that during the reign of Richard III in Cheshire there lived a forester, Caterling, who, when he caught poachers, grinned evilly.
There is also information that when creating the image of the Cat, Carroll was allegedly inspired by carved wooden ornaments in the church of the village of Croft in the north-east of England, where his father served as a pastor; and also that in one of the towns in Cheshire there was a legend about the ghost of a cat appearing and disappearing.
“What are those sounds over there?” asked Alice, nodding at the very secluded thickets of some pretty vegetation at the edge of the garden.
“And these are miracles,” explained the Cheshire Cat indifferently.
“And.. And what are they doing there,” the girl asked, inevitably blushing.
“As expected,” the cat yawned. “They happen”...
Can you disappear and appear less suddenly? Otherwise my head is spinning.
“Okay,” said the Cat and disappeared - this time very slowly. The tip of his tail disappeared first, and his smile last; she hovered in the air for a long time, when everything else had already disappeared.
- Y-yes! - thought Alice. “I’ve seen cats without a smile, but smiles without a cat!” I have never seen anything like this in my life.
Cheshire Cat: Taking anything in this world seriously is a fatal mistake.
Alice: Is life serious?
Cheshire Cat: Oh yes, life is serious! But not very...
You see, this still cannot be avoided, - said the Cat, - after all, we are all crazy here. I'm crazy. You're crazy...
Why do you know that I'm crazy? - asked Alice.
“Because you are here,” the Cat said simply, “otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten here.”
Any road begins with the first step: banal, but true. Even here.
At times, in her madness, I see glimpses of real talent.
It's better to know where you're going than to wander around unknown.
Talking about bloodshed at the table spoils my appetite.
How should I understand you?
- You don't need to understand me. Be sure to love and feed on time.
Those who say that there is nothing better to calm the nerves than a cup of tea have not actually tried real tea. It's like an injection of adrenaline straight to the heart.
"Alice in Wonderland" is one of the most mysterious and strange fairy tales. After the release of the book, the adventures of a little girl in magical land were not understood by critics, but over time the fairy tale, like its heroine, grew from children's literature into one of the most cited books in the world, into a work to which thinkers, psychologists and historians, logicians and philosophers, physicists and mathematicians turn in their research, constantly discovering new meanings in it. Although the story itself appeared by chance, when the author, improvising, came up with a fairy tale for the daughters of the rector of Christ Church College, Liddell.
The author of the book is considered to be Lewis Carroll, but this is a literary pseudonym; the writer's real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Charles grew up in a large family and constantly occupied his younger brothers and sisters as a child. different games, fairy tales and stories of his own composition. The boy loved to invent word games and new words.
In 1850, Dodgson entered Christ Church College, after receiving a bachelor's degree, following a competition he received the right to lecture in mathematics, becoming a college teacher for twenty-six years, as well as a deacon of the Church of England. Teaching provided the main income, allowing me to engage in literary creativity, Charles Dodgson sent his first poems and stories to magazines while still in college, but became widely known only after the publication of books about Alice.
Who is the prototype of Alice in Wonderland?
Alice Liddell, daughter of the Principal of Christ Church College, along with her sisters Edith and Lorina, were the first to hear a fascinating fairy tale about Alice's adventures underground. The mathematician Charles Dodgson was very shy, he stuttered, and only with children could he open up and surrender to the flow of imagination, inventing entertaining stories on the go, often during walks. Later, at the children's request, he wrote down a story about Alice's adventures.
The writer gave Alice Liddell one of the fairy tale manuscripts with his drawings and a photograph of the seven-year-old heroine. In 1928, the manuscript was sold at auction for £15,400, as Alice Hargreaves needed funds after the death of her husband.
Alice in Wonderland characters
The tale, created by Lewis Carroll, has many amazing characters, the Cheshire Cat with a smile that remains when the cat disappears, and the March Hare and the Mad Hatter - the heroes of the mad tea party that never ends, one of the main scenes of the book.
The prototype of the Cheshire Cat was the cats from the garden next to the rector’s house; they loved to sit on one spreading tree, as well as the old English proverb “Smiles like a Cheshire cat.” Proverbs and sayings, puns, all the wealth English language are also heroes of Carroll's fairy tales. Under a tree in the garden, the girls and Dodgson often played croquet, a game which in turn was reflected in fairy tale world- the royal croquet stage.
Thanks to another old English proverb of the fourteenth century: “Mad as a March Hare,” a strange tea party character appeared - the March Hare, about whom the heroes of the fairy tale said that he was born like this.
The Hatter, or in the translation of another author, the Hatter, in connection with his profession, usually pulled hats onto special blanks, “so he ended up being a fool.” Also, hatters used to work with mercury, which had an extremely negative impact on the psyche.
According to another version, the prototype of the Mad Hatter was Theophilus Carter, an eccentric furniture dealer who lived near Oxford; he had the nickname “Mad Hatter”, as he was the author of eccentric ideas and loved to wear a top hat. Theophilus Carter is the inventor of the alarm bed, which throws the sleeper to the floor at a certain hour. It is believed that this is why Carroll was worried about time and about waking Sonya.
Carroll's strange world of nonsense tales, devoid of any morality, appeared as a counterpoint to the popular fairy tales of the time, filled with teachings, many of which seemed mawkish. In the world of his fantasies, Charles Dodgson found freedom from the conventions and prohibitions that were so widespread in England in the 19th century.
In this article you will learn:
Cheshire Cat from Wonderland- famous hero of L. Carroll’s book “Alice in Wonderland”.
Creating an image
This hero was not in Carroll's original work. The character appeared in 1865 thanks to the popular expression “Smile like the Cheshire Cat” and there are theories about this: 1. The legendary cheese produced in Cheshire was made to look like a smiling cat; 2. Cheshire was so small and it was called a county, even cats laughed at it.
Cheshire cat from the movie
Characteristic:
The good-natured Cheshire cat smiled constantly and could disappear, leaving only his wide smile for consideration. The cat was also that philosopher, he could deliver more than one speech, at the same time inserting something funny. The character moved freely through the air and could teleport.
Cheshire considered himself crazy, since everyone around him was crazy. He wagged his tail when he was angry and angry when he was happy.
“I’ve seen cats without a smile. But a smile without a cat!..”
Story
The character is firmly established in popular culture. There is no person who does not know this smiling character. The cat first appeared in Carroll's book Alice in Wonderland and belonged to the Duchess. Cartoons, games, comics all about the same girl Alice brought him great popularity.
The creature’s habitat is Wonderland, which is inhabited by a variety of equally strange heroes. Best friends The cat is the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse, with whom he organizes Crazy Tea Parties.
Among Cheshire's friends, there was a girl named Alice who called him Cheshirick.
Photo
“You don’t have to understand me. Be sure to love and feed on time.” (Cheshire Cat)
“You have two choices: one will lead you to happiness, the other will lead you to madness. My advice to you is don’t stumble” (Cheshire Cat)
There are few cat images in world literature that would be as famous and recognizable as Cheshire cat (Cheshire Cat) from "Alice in Wonderland" (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) - a fantastic tale written by the English mathematician, poet and prose writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.
However, not everyone knows that the Cheshire Cat was absent from the original version of Lewis Carroll's book. It appeared only in the 1865 edition.
A constantly smiling cat who knows how to quickly disappear at his own request or, conversely, gradually dissolve into thin air, leaving only a smile as a farewell.
Dozens of artists wonderfully embodied this image; it became the hero of films and cartoons.
Like Lewis Carroll himself, the Cat is a native of the county Chestershire (Cheshire). He either amuses Alice with unusual conversations, or annoys the girl with boring philosophical speculations.
During the creation of the fairy tale in England, the expression was often used “smiles like a Cheshire cat” (English: “grin like a Cheshire cat”, grin sardonically like a Cheshire cat). There were different opinions about the origin of this saying.
According to the first version, round cheeses that slightly resembled the face of a smiling cat were produced in Cheshire for more than nine centuries. The second suggested that “even cats laughed at the high rank of the small county of Cheshire.”
When young Dodgson arrived at Oxford, there was just a discussion going on about the origin of this saying. Dodgson, a native of Cheshire, could not help but become interested in her.
But the Cheshire Cat from Wonderland adopted the ability to disappear from the ghost of the Congleton cat. During his lifetime, this cat was the favorite of the abbey caretaker, but one fine day he did not return home after another walk. A few days later, a woman heard scratching at the door - her beloved cat was sitting on the threshold, which a moment later disappeared into thin air. The ghost of a white cat has been seen by hundreds of people over the years. He appeared every evening: he was seen by the caretaker, her friends, and visitors to the Cheshire Abbey. Carroll was apparently inspired by this story and used the image of the Congleton Ghost Cat to create his smiling Cheshire Cat.
And when that rare feeling now overtakes a person, when you want to smile from ear to ear, like that Cat, then they say that you have been visited by “ Cheshire mood." There is a story that you can infect those around you with this mood, like that magical smile that hung in the air for a long time, when the Cat himself was already in a completely different place.
The Cheshire Cat in the fairy tale had many funny sayings who have been wandering around the world ever since, infecting more and more people with this “May mood”
“I'm not crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”
“No matter how you look, you must look in the right direction.”
“A serious attitude towards anything in this world is a fatal mistake.
- Is life serious?
- Oh yes, life is serious! But not very..."
“Whoever says that there is nothing better to calm the nerves than a cup of tea has never actually tried real tea. It's like an injection of adrenaline straight to the heart."
“- Please tell me where should I go from here?
-Where do you want to go? - answered the Cat.
“I don’t care...” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter where you go,” said the Cat.
“If only I could get somewhere,” Alice explained.
“You’ll definitely end up somewhere,” said the Cat. “You just need to walk long enough.”
“The fact is that while you are small, you can see what is invisible to you when you are big.”
“Those who choose the difficult path are called fools.”
“I love psychos: only they understand the world around us, only with them can I find a common language.”
“Threats, promises and good intentions - none of these are actions.”
“Collect everything you find useful. Except indifference and ignorance. And then maybe you will survive.”
Please tell me why your cat smiles so much? - Alice asked, slightly timid.
“It’s the Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “that’s why.”
Since Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland was published in 1865, the origins of the Cheshire Cat have been speculated upon by many people. But the mystery has not yet been solved - perhaps Carroll was inspired by a real cat, perhaps a coat of arms with the image of a cat, and according to one version, the prototype was a family named Catt.
It seems that only one thing is certain - that the expression “Breathed in a smile like the Cheshire Cat” does not belong to Carroll himself. Smile of the Cheshire Cat first found in Peter Pindar's Lyric Epistles, which contains the phrase "Our court will smile like the Cheshire Cat." The satirist John Walcott (Wolcot or Wolcott), who died in 1819, was hiding under the pseudonym Peter Pindar.
What was the primary source for the appearance of the Cheshire Cat?
Here are just a few more or less likely versions:
The Cheshire Cat appeared thanks to cats from Chester.
In Chester, a city located in Cheshire, which in former times had a port on the banks of the River Dee, there were warehouses in which cheese and other dairy products were stored. Harbor cats gathered on the pier, waiting for rats and mice to leave ships loaded with Cheshire cheese. The abundance of food made them the happiest cats in the Kingdom; they seemed to be smiling contentedly!
Some sources claim that on the site of the Chester cheese warehouse, there used to be a monument to the Cheshire Cat. However, no official documents about this have survived, and the existence of the monument remains a mystery, as does the origin of Carroll’s Cheshire Cat. However, it is impossible to deny that true Cheshire cats lived in the city then and live now.
Proper feeding of cats begins with proper selection of food https://www.acana.ru/katalog-kormov.
The Cheshire Cat is a generalized image of British Blue cats.
It is a very common belief that the breed British Blue cats, known for their “smiling” facial expression, descended from cats that had long lived in Cornwall, gradually moving to Cheshire with people. This fascinating idea was put forward by David Hayden, who suggested that Lewis Carroll was undoubtedly familiar with these cats and their “smiles” in their time.
Cheshire Cat - an image inspired by Cheshire cheeses.
Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was born and grew up until the age of 11 in the small village of Daresbury in Cheshire. No doubt he had often seen local cheeses produced in the shape of various animals, one of which was a grinning cat.
The Cheshire Cat is a heraldic symbol.
The Cheshire Cat may have been derived from early Cheshire heraldry. For example, the coat of arms of the first Earl of Chester was engraved with a lion. The lion is a common heraldic symbol, and medieval artists were often required to depict it. Naturally, in the drawings the animal, which the artists had never even seen, turned out to look like cats. The image of an imaginary lion, at the same time, often turned out to be noticeably smiling.
The Cheshire cat came from the signs.
For reasons similar to those stated in the heraldic version, the Cheshire Cat may have come from signs depicting a lion. The signs of British pubs very often depicted a lion, which few artists actually met. Pub signs date back centuries, and the lions and leopards depicted on them were often referred to as cats.
Cheshire cat and church carvings.
Carroll may have formed the image of the Cheshire Cat under the influence of the figurine of a smiling cat that adorned the Church of St. Wilfrid (twelfth century), located in the Cheshire village of Grappenhall. Carroll's father, a vicar, often preached there, and the boy must have noticed the cat during his visits to the church.
In the east of Cheshire is the small village of Pott Shrigley, where St Christopher's Church (thirteenth century) also has a cat's head carved on one of the internal walls, next to the pulpit, very much like the illustration in the book. Perhaps young Lewis Carroll could have noticed her too?
At the age of 11, Carroll moved from Cheshire to Croft-on-Tees in the north-east of England. His father was then minister of Croft Church and archdeacon of Richmond (1843 to 1868). In the place reserved for the clergy in the church, a lion's face was carved in stone on one side. When looking at him from one of the pews of the church, it seems that the lion is smiling broadly; but if you look at him standing, the smile disappears, exactly like the Cheshire Cat.
Okay, I've often seen cats without a smile, thought Alice, but a smile without a cat? This is the most curious thing I have seen in my life!
When the floorboards of the rectory were opened around 1950, some Victorian artefacts were found that could well have belonged to the Dodgson family. Among them was a white glove, but it could have belonged to the White Rabbit himself!
Carroll later lived for several years in Guildford, Surrey, and often visited the nearby village of Cranleigh, where St Nicholas Church had a Gargoyle figure resembling a cat. Who knows, maybe the Cheshire Cat was born in Carroll’s imagination thanks to her?
The Cheshire cat is the court jester.
There is an assumption that at one time there was a jester at court named Cat Kaitlin, who arrived from Cheshire. Since people would like to be as happy as the images shown to them, the expression burst into a smile like the Cheshire Cat could have been born as a tribute to his art. The author of this version admits, however, that all the efforts expended to prove the existence of this jester did not yield results. Therefore, perhaps this explanation is the least likely.
Quantum Cheshire cat.
The ability to leave a place, leaving only your smile, inspired scientists to give a name to one of the phenomena of quantum mechanics. During the experiments, it was discovered that the quantum system is capable of interconnecting itself in such a way as if the particles (cat) and their properties (smile) were at different points in space! Of course, this phenomenon has nothing to do with the origin of the hero of Lewis Carroll’s book, but it clearly speaks of his fame.
