Cheshire Cat

Updated on Feb 02, 2024

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Created by Lewis Carroll		Friends Alice

Voiced by Sterling HollowayTony Pope (Disneyland attractions)Jim Cummings (current)Keith David (Once Upon A Time in Wonderland)Stephen Fry Species Tabby British Shorthair Cat Gender Male (the Queen of Hearts cries "off with his head" when the cat upsets the king) Quote "Most everyone's mad here""You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself" Personality Comical, Silly, Mysterious, Insane, Sneaky, Cunning, Mischievous, Unpredictable Appearance Pink stripes, Obese purple cat, Yellow eyeballs, Large grin, Long fluffy tail, Small black claws, Small ears Foes Queen of Hearts, King of Hearts, Card Soldiers Likes Giving Alice some very good advice, Standing on his head, Showcasing his abilities, Tricking people (especially Alice) Dislikes Seeing Alice upset (unless he 'playfully' caused it) Similar The Mad Hatter, Alice, White Rabbit, Queen of Hearts, Caterpillar

Alice in wonderland cheshire cat

The Cheshire Cat (/ˈtʃɛʃər/ or /ˈtʃɛʃɪər/) is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and known for its distinctive mischievous grin. While most often celebrated in Alice-related contexts, the Cheshire Cat predates the 1865 novel and has transcended the context of literature and become enmeshed in popular culture, appearing in various forms of media, from political cartoons to television, as well as cross-disciplinary studies, from business to science. One of its distinguishing features is that from time to time its body disappears, the last thing visible being its iconic grin.

Cheshire Cat Cheshire Cat pictures AliceinWonderlandnet

Alice in wonderland the cheshire cat

Origins

There are numerous theories about the origins of the phrase "Grinning like a Cheshire Cat" in English history.

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A possible origin of the phrase is one favoured by the people of Cheshire, a county in England which boasts numerous dairy farms; hence the cats grin because of the abundance of milk and cream.

According to Brewer's Dictionary, "The phrase has never been satisfactorily accounted for, but it has been said that cheese was formerly sold in Cheshire moulded like a cat that looked as though it was grinning". The cheese was cut from the tail end, so that the last part eaten was the head of the smiling cat.

In 1853, Samuel Maunder explained:

Cheshire Cat The Cheshire Cat Clip Art Images Disney Clip Art Galore

This phrase owes its origin to the unhappy attempts of a sign painter of that country to represent a lion rampant, which was the crest of an influential family, on the sign-boards of many of the inns. The resemblance of these lions to cats caused them to be generally called by the more ignoble name. A similar case is to be found in the village of Charlton, between Pewsey and Devizes, Wiltshire. A public-house by the roadside is commonly known by the name of The Cat at Charlton. The sign of the house was originally a lion or tiger, or some such animal, the crest of the family of Sir Edward Poore.

Cheshire Cat Cheshire Cat Wallpapers Wallpaper Cave

Its first appearance in literature was in the 18th century. A classical dictionary of the vulgar tongue (1788) by Francis Grose (The Second Edition, Corrected and Enlarged, London) contains the following entry: "CHESHIRE CAT. He grins like a Cheshire cat; said of any one who shows his teeth and gums in laughing."

The phrase appears again in print in John Wolcot's pseudonymous Peter Pindar's Pair of Lyric Epistles (1792): "Lo, like a Cheshire cat our court will grin."

The phrase also appears in print in William Makepeace Thackeray's The Newcomes (1855) ("That woman grins like a Cheshire cat.").

Lewis Carroll's character

The Cheshire Cat is now largely identified with the character of the same name in Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice first encounters the Cheshire Cat at the Duchess' house in her kitchen, and later on the branches of a tree, where it appears and disappears at will, and engages Alice in amusing but sometimes perplexing conversation. The cat sometimes raises philosophical points that annoy or baffle Alice; but appears to cheer her when it appears suddenly at the Queen of Hearts' croquet field; and when sentenced to death, baffles everyone by having made its head appear without its body, sparking a debate between the executioner and the King and Queen of Hearts about whether a disembodied head can indeed be beheaded. At one point, the cat disappears gradually until nothing is left but its grin, prompting Alice to remark that 'she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat'.

According to recent analysis by scholar David Day, Lewis Carroll's cat was Reverend Dr Edward Bouverie Pusey, Oxford professor of Hebrew, and Carroll's mentor.

The name Pusey was suggested by Alice's deferential address of the cat as "Cheshire Puss". Pusey was an authority on the fathers of the Christian Church, and in Carroll's time Pusey was known as the Patristic Catenary (or chain), after the chain of authority of Church patriarchs. As a mathematician, Carroll would have been well familiar with the other meaning of catenary: the curve of a horizontally-suspended chain, which suggests the shape of the cat's grin.

RIDDLE: What kind of a cat can grin? ANSWER: A Catenary.

Source of imagery

There are many other suggestions that Carroll found inspiration for the name and expression of the Cheshire Cat in the 16th century sandstone carving of a grinning cat, on the west face of St. Wilfrid's Church tower in Grappenhall, a village adjacent to his birthplace in Daresbury, Cheshire.

Lewis Carroll's father, Reverend Charles Dodgson, was Rector of Croft and Archdeacon of Richmond in North Yorkshire, England, from 1843 to 1868; Carroll lived here from 1843 to 1850. Historians believe Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat in the book Alice in Wonderland was inspired by a carving in Croft church.

Another possible inspiration was the British Shorthair: Carroll saw a representative British Shorthair illustrated on a label of Cheshire cheese. The Cat Fanciers' Association profile reads: "When gracelessness is observed, the British Shorthair is duly embarrassed, quickly recovering with a 'Cheshire cat smile'”.

In 1992, members of the Lewis Carroll Society attributed it to a gargoyle found on a pillar in St. Nicolas Church, Cranleigh, where Carroll used to travel frequently when he lived in Guildford (though this is doubtful as he moved to Guildford some three years after Alice's Adventures in Wonderland had been published) and a carving in a church in the village of Croft-on-Tees, in the north east of England, where his father had been rector.

Carroll is believed to have visited St. Christopher's church in Pott Shrigley, Cheshire, which has a stone sculpture most closely resembling the pictorial cat in the book.

Novels

The Cheshire cat has inspired other characters in the publishing world:

Cheshire cats is the name given to the widespread genetically engineered cats appearing in Paolo Bacigalupi's biopunk novel The Windup Girl (2009).

In Frank Beddor's The Looking Glass Wars series of novels, the Cat is Redd's top assassin. The Cat has butcher knife claws and can change from his true form to the form of a small black kitten. He initially has nine lives, but loses all but one by the end of the book.

In the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, the Cheshire Cat is an overseer in the Great Library, a library within the "book-world" which contains copies of every book ever written. However, due to "boundary changes", the Cat is renamed the "Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat".

The novel Mirror by Graham Masterton is based on the story of Through The Looking Glass and features the Cheshire Cat as a familiar of Satan

American comics

The Cheshire Cat can be spotted in several comics by major American publishers:

In DC Comics, the New Goddess Malice Vundabar, niece of the villain Virman Vundabar, resembles Alice and controls a carnivorous creature called Chessure, that looks like nothing more than a grinning face. Cheshire is also the codename of the human assassin Jade Nguyen, who has a daughter with the heroic archer Roy "Speedy" Harper.

In Marvel Comics, Cheshire Cat is a foe of Luke Cage. An ally of fellow Cage enemy Big Brother, Cheshire Cat is able to make himself invisible and teleport. His physical appearance and manner of speaking are both evocative of a classic hep cat, despite debuting in 1976.

In Peanuts, Snoopy is featured performing the "Cheshire Beagle" trick several times, whereby he grins widely while the rest of his body disappears.

Anime and manga

The Cheshire Cat character has been embraced by the world of Japanese comics (Manga) and animation (Anime), where several odes to the Cheshire Cat have been observed:

The Cheshire Cat appears in the 1983 animated TV series Fushigi no Kuni no Alice. It is shown in one episode that he can lose his power to disappear if he sneezes, and that he needs blue flowers to restore it. Another Cheshire Cat appears as the cat of the Duchess but isn't magical.

In CLAMP's Miyuki-Chan in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat appears as a catgirl.

In the Alice in the Country of Hearts or Heart no Kuni no Alice series of manga and anime, the Cheshire Cat appears as a catboy punk called Boris Airay. He has tattoos and body piercings, wears exposing outfits, a collar and chain, and a boa. He also has a fetish with weapons, especially guns. In the series, like many of the other characters, he falls in love with Alice.

The villain Schrödinger, in the manga Hellsing, is described by his commanding officer, The Major, as the "smiling cat of Wonderland".

In the anime and manga Pandora Hearts, one of the main characters, Alice, had a pet cat that died, but returns 100 years later as a chain in a realm created by one of Alice's memories. He came to call himself the Cheshire Cat, and had a more human-like appearance, or a catboy look.

In the sixth episode of Serial Experiments Lain, Lain refers to a Wired user with an avatar consisting of disembodied, wide-grinning lips as a Cheshire Cat wannabe. Lain's friend, Alice, was named after the book's protagonist.

In the TV show Prison Break, Theodore Bagwell refers to the Cheshire Cat in season 3 episode 22.

The Pokémon character Gengar has the Cheshire Cat's mischievous smile.

In the episode 'Haruhi in Wonderland' of the popular anime/manga Ouran High School Host Club, the twins Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin each dress up as the Cheshire Cat, allowing them to 'teleport' from one place to another. They keep up this charade until Haruhi tells them to come out. She cannot concentrate as they are making her dizzy.

In the anime and manga Project ARMS one of the Keith has the ARM of the Cheshire Cat, which allows him to instantaneously 'teleport' at will.

The Cheshire Cat appears in the Kingdom Hearts Manga, fulfilling mostly the same role as in the game. Notable diversions, though, are that he gives Sora the power of magic in general-as opposed to just Blizzard-and an implication that he turned down Maleficent's offer that she made to her fellow Disney Villains.

In the episode 'Ciel in Wonderland' of the anime "Black Butler", the grim reaper Grell Sutcliff takes on the role of the Cheshire Cat. In this form, Grell no longer possesses the red coat taken from Madam Red, but gains pink-and-magenta cat ears and a matching cat tail and scarf, along with an ability to appear and disappear at will.

Art

The Cheshire Cat has transcended screens to be featured in fine art:

An exhibit called The Cheshire Cat at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, created by Bob Miller in 1978, features a mirrored eyepiece that allows visitors to look at a picture of the Cheshire Cat's face with one eye, while the other eye sees a reflection of a white screen to the side.

References

Cheshire Cat Wikipedia

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