Compared to the image of the cat on the previous page, here the cat looks menacing and deadly. This image can be thought of as the mouse’s perspective of the cat, where it is evil and murderous adversary rather than a docile house pet. The cat is anthropomorphized with it standing on two legs and brandishing a knife. The book continues to give human like qualities to both the cat and the mouse, bolstering the symbolic link to the Russian Revolution. In its other hand, the cat carries several dead mice, giving a concrete image of the cat’s tyranny and bloodlust. This is perhaps the most stinking image in this book targeted at children, but serves to create a dark and evil impression of the previous regime for the future generation.
2
Silhouettes of several mice are shown cowering beneath the floor. The cat physically towers over the mice, as it does in previous images, but going forward, the cat is kept at bay and the mice are often depicted as a collective mass. Here, the mice are depicted at a low point, where they are disparate and impotent against the cat’s dominance.
3
L.D.: All of the images in this book are created using woodblock printing, and this artist’s mark (L. Dubrovskii) appears on each page.
4
He strokes his whiskers,Beats the floor with his tail,And softly paces, pacesBarefoot, near the hole.