Perhaps none of Edward Lear's poems appeal to children and adults as much as “The Owl and the Pussy-cat” does. Like all of Lear's works, the extreme fictitious nature of this poem makes it all the more attractive and engaging. Even though his poems are a work of fiction, both children and adults may well likely be able to draw out morals and lessons from Lear's poems. The colorful imagery, the extent to which this poem is fantasized, and the subconscious lessons that are learnt are some of the appealing elements that add to the delight of the readers of this poem.
What both children and adults tend to do when reading any of Lear's works-limericks, poetry or prose-is close their eyes and imagine the scene that Lear attempts to paint. He introduces some of the most vivid and “beautiful” colors in the first three lines of the poem, the “sea,” “the pea-green boat,” and the “honey.” The soft, pastel color of “pea green” and the mustard/golden touch of honey can be imagined against the bright blue color of the “sea.” The idea is to paint not a picture of harsh reality, but one that both children and adults are able to escape into.
It is a world of fairytales; a land where anything is possible. Animals can talk, sing and dance, and most importantly, an owl and a pussy-cat can get married to each other. Many cartoons teach children how to live together in harmony, but what Lear does so extraordinarily in this poem is harmonize the animal world by creating a pair from two different animals, an owl and a pussy-cat, “so they took it (the ring) away, and were married next day.” There is joy, togetherness, and equality expressed in this poem.
Lear paints a world of childlike beauty, serenity, and romance; a world in which a relationship of love is presented out of the norm, where marriage is based on something that children can comprehend. In the real world, marriage is not all about love. In every marriage, there are always conflicts-money matters, racial and ethnic factors, family and religion are some of the issues that are taken into consideration before two hearts are joined. Often times, marriage is accompanied by tears, either tears of joy or sadness. Lear does not make the owl and the pussy-cat cry out of happiness because years of joy is a phenomenon incomprehensible to children who tend only to associate tears with sadness; therefore, Lear has the owl and the pussy-cat dancing “by the light of the moon” instead. And in the real world, getting married takes time. Most of the time, the thought process of getting into a lifetime commitment takes a long time, but in the world that Lear paints, the owl and the pussy-cat are married as soon as they find a ring.
Lear paints a world of utter simplicity in which there are no five-star hotels and lavish wedding dresses and expensive rings. All the owl and the pussy-cat have in the possessions are a “boat,” a “small guitar,” a jar of “honey,” and some “money.” Lear presents “money” paradoxically to meet the demands of the child's imagination; “plenty of money” for adults does not conjure the same image for children who believe that the more coins one has, the richer one is. The value of coins are much less compared to paper money, yet the coins are what counts for the “plenty of money,” while the “five-pound note” is used as wrapping paper to hide and safely tuck away. More significantly is the idea of the price of the ring that the pig sells. In reality, there are no real wedding rings that are sold for “one shilling,” but in the world that Lear paints, everything is simple and not over-dramatized in a sense that love and harmony are inexpensive.
Lear attempts to harmonize not only the world of animals, but the world in which both animals and children live in. Children come to learn and understand that not only humans have the tendency to feel “love,” but that this emotion exists between animals as well as between animals and human beings. Lear's poems connect to the human world more deeply than is understood on the surface. Animals and humans are brought together through the ability to “talk,” “sing,” and “dance.” In the real world, children know and understand that animals don't “talk,” “sing,” and “dance” literally the way humans do, but merely fantasizing a world in which animals are personified enables children to educate themselves enough to understand that animals do at least “talk” and “sing” but in very different ways from human beings.
Lear portrays a notion that is complicated in the real world, but easily accessible in the fantasy world of this poem: reconciliation. Since this is a poem that escapes all norms of reality, it makes sense that in a world of nonsense, everything and anything is capable of being reconciled. In the real world, it is difficult to fathom the union of a fox and a hare, a tiger and a deer, or a cat and a mouse. In the real world, it is difficult to fathom a relationship between a black man and a white woman or a black woman and a white man. In the real world, it is difficult to fathom a bond between a Hindu and a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew, or an atheist and a believer. In the real world, there are more differences than there are reconciliations; therefore, Lear's poem positions itself into the lives of both children and adults as an appeasing mechanism.
Children grow up believing that the world is as beautiful and serene as Lear's poems, and the adults are fixated on pitying the fact that the real world is, indeed, not as easy and comforting as Lear's poem offers. Nevertheless, the poem still reads as a delight for children as well as adults. Although Lear may have put this poem together simply to entertain his readers, children grow up reading it differently than adults do. There is depth to this simple and sweet poem: a demarcation between illusion and reality, and a world in which there is apparent equality, peace, and happiness.
