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Published on The Shadow of the Enlightenment (http://www2.evergreen.edu/shadow)

Dave Raileanu

 Both chapters 1 and 2 of Cat Massacre demonstrate how the "everyone else" reacted to the first and second estates of the Ancien Regime. Frenchmen of the lower station bothe resented and resigned to their lot; they acrimoniously accepted the general constraits of society. The peasantry, living in de facto slavery, dreamed and schemed of a life where food was plentiful and the mice played, at least while the cat was away. The apprentices, living in a more transparent form of indenture, were presented with the tangible form of wealth on a daily basis but were continually denied the pleasures enjoyed by the lowest members of their masters' households. Both situations indicate a discontentment, a malaise, that ate at the hearts of loyal subjects until they were nothing left.

Emily Anderson › [0]

Source URL:
http://www2.evergreen.edu/shadow/shadow/dave-raileanu-2