The cat in Thomas Gray’s “ Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowning in a Tub of Gold Fishes” makes a choice and is forced to face the consequences. In using the formalistic and dialogistic approaches to literature, Gray’s use of such things as word choice, allusions, symbols, and dialogue convey to the audience that the choices we make in life do matter, and all of them have consequences.
Thomas Gray’s word choice is significant in this poem. He vividly describes the cat: Her conscious tail her joy declar’d; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purr’d applause…”(7-12). Anyone, cat lovers or haters (me) can picture the image of a cat resting on any object it can fit on, most likely eyeing the next victim of its pounce. Her tail waving in the air, her face fixed in position as if she is telling her audience, “Look at me!” In gaudily describing the cat, Gray helps to form a mental picture and a better understanding of the animal he is depicting.
Gray also created many allusions in his poem. “… Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue…(16). In describing the goldfish’s body, he makes reference to the ancient city of Tyre in Phoenicia, famous for its purple dye. Another place we find an allusion is when Gray is talking about the cat’s death: “…No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr’d…”(34). This allusion is to the story of the poet Arion, who was rescued from drowning by dolphins charmed with his song. A Nereid was a daughter of the sea god Nymphus.
Authors use symbols to relate something in a literary work to something larger in life. In this case, Gray’s cat is symbolic of women, while the goldfish are symbolic of men. The reason I say this is it is normally the women who fall prey to the men. Men normally have that carefree attitude, and they are just swimming along, while the women are more eager to jump in and “fall” in love. It is also the women who, in most cases, get their heart broken - they are so far in love they drown and can’t recover.
Dialogue is not at the surface at this poem. It is when you dig deeper you find Gray’s message. In the last stanza, Gray changes subjects from the cat to the female audience: “From hence, ye beauties, undeceiv’d, Know, one false step is ne’er retriev’d, and be with caution bold. Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes and heedless hearts is lawful prize, Nor all that glisters, gold.”(37-42). Gray is telling the female audience to be careful of the choices they make and not to jump into everything that seems enticing.
Not only women can take something from this story. This parable tells us to be careful of every choice we make. It seems as we enter adulthood we are forced to make decisions that will have a lasting effect on our life. These choices are crucial and the main thing to realize is once the choice is made it can’t be taken back. You can’t press rewind in life.
Gray’s poetry has surpassed many other of his colleagues because we
learn lessons from his stories that could be centuries old, but still have
a lasting effect on us today. “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned
in a Tub of Gold Fishes” reminds us all to be careful of the choices we
make because we are all at sometime in our life the susceptible cat, and
if we don’t make wise decisions, we will end up floating in the fish pond
of life.