Macavity the Mystery Cat by T.S. Eliot

                                                           Paraphrase

Macavity the Mystery Cat is the first and last poem composed by T.S. Eliot for youngsters . Perhaps, the poet is comparing cat with all the criminals that commit the crime and get elope.

Unlike Eliot’s other poems, this is very easy to understand. It has no complexities and farfetched references. Abstractly, Cat represents the notoriety, notoriety of a typical criminal, whom we encounter at every nook and corner of the public places. In the poem, a brief description about the mystery cat is given. The mystery cat has mastery to move around without leaving its single footprint. He has entitled as ‘Mystery’ due to its notoriety for braking the laws. For Scotland Squad, to catch him easily is not possible, every efforts to catch red handed  results in despair or empty hand. It is common for the police squad, after reaching on the spot of crime and criminal is not there. The mystery cat possesses all the skills or tricks that a typical or master criminal use to have; he is a unique in all. The mystery Cat is capable to do unnatural acts; he breaks the laws made for human by human as well as the laws made by nature. He can be spotted in very bizarre places, the places about which we do not think generally. He is different from the terrestrial creature; perhaps, he uses to be some time in the basement or you may need to look up in the air.

Now, the poet is pointing out or giving the clues about the appearance of the Mystery Cat: how it looks, how one can get it identify. The Macavity, a very tall and thin cat like ginger, one can recognise it very easily if he knows the shape of cat. His eyes are very deep and so brows lined deeply, head is erected or dome like. His coat is very dusty and so uncombed beard. The mystery cat is very quick, quick like a squirrel and turns the head around so that he could look all the sides. It is common for him, if we think he is asleep but he is wide-awake. The mystery cat has all the faculties and techniques that make him incomparable.

The poet wants to reveal that cat has hidden identity but we are still leaving him to accuse. The poet’s point of view the cat is not cat: a monster, a sinner of uncountable sins and master of devils in the form of a cat. The devil cat multiplies itself; he can be seen at multiple places, the places like Public Square, by street and at other public domains. However, the most the matter of despair is that it does not come in the reach of our police officers.

AUTHOR NOTE:

Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 Sep. 1888 – 4 Jan. 1965) was a British writer. He, by birth was an American, moved from his native United States to England in 1914 when he was 25 years old. He has a long queue of educational record: bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in Philosophy, MA in English Literature, studied Indian Philosophy and Sanskrit and so on. He has also a voluminous stock of works: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), The Waste Land (1922), Four Quartets (1943) and Murder in the Cathedral (1935). The present poem Macavity The Mystery Cat is the best known of Elitot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, an exceptional book Eliot wrote for a younger audience.