A BRIEF SKETCH ON CATS AND MICE

The long history of the allegorical tradition that uses talking animals as the main character(s) in the world’s literature is indicative of the fact that anthropomorphizing animals has long been a popular storytelling technique among writers (e.g., Aesop’s Fables, Panchatantra, Animal Farm, Kalila and Dimna, Marzban Nameh). This technique has also helped enrich the Persian Literature. In Persian fables, animals act like humans, they talk, cheat, fight, and the like etc. Such characteristics repeat in a similar or varied fashion throughout the story and finally gain symbolic significance. For instance, peacock signifies hypocrisy in Masnavi and Mantiq al-Tayr. Likewise, dog, wolf, pig, and mouse, signify greed in Seir al-Ibad ILa al-Maad. In a similar vein, serpent and whale signify jealousy and lust, respectively. In The Cat and The Mouse, the cat is a hypocrite who pretends to be pious and the mouse is another hypocrite who pretends to be a faithful friend. This paper aims at examining the cultural significance and the symbolic role of cat and mouse in Persian Literature by focusing on such works as The Mouse and The Cat by Obeid Zakani and The Cat and The Mouse by Sheykh Bahaie. This review also tries to apply the sociological perspective to the analysis of the aforementioned works.