Kitty from The Rabbi’s Cat is an entertaining character who has many layers to his character development. In the first story Kitty gains the ability to talk after eating the family parrot. After the cat gains the ability to talk he begins to question the Rabbi about his beliefs and this leads to some confrontation between the two characters. Kitty, challenges the Rabbi in his faith while he still had his voice, but in the last moments that he had his voice he spent it trying to help the Rabbi pass an exam that would allow him to keep the position of Rabbi in his town. This moment expresses how kitty, though a challenging character for the Rabbi to agree with sometimes is actually a good friend of the Rabbi’s.
Kitty has very few interests as a character and it may be from his unique perspective as a cat that he is able to offer the audience a unique and objective outlook on much of the beliefs of the humans in the story. Kitty in some ways can be compared to a child that asks questions out of curiosity that may sometimes offer a fresh perspective to a belief. Like children, Kitty has trouble understanding certain ideas that the people take for granted.
Kitty offers me as a reader a fresh perspective and because he asks questions that most would not think of he offers us a new perspective to a sometimes old and rigid set of ideas. Kitty allows me as the reader to view an argument from an objective perspective and this allows me to understand why I believe what I believe. Due to this, Kitty is a central character to the story and to the understanding of the context of the story on greater depths than just simple time line progression.
Andrew Asimus
