The Cat
Bastet, the familiar
Independent, nocturnal, and never quite tame.
The Cat: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Marie-Louise von Franz, in her lectures on a Romanian tale published as The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption, read the cat as the independent, instinctive feminine that will not be made useful, cursed and at last redeemed.
It sees in the dark and goes its own way: an image of the instinct that stays wild within the house.
The Cat: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Bastet of Bubastis; the cats who drew Freyja’s chariot; the witch’s familiar; Puss in Boots; the cat that walked by himself.
From the Sources
Kipling makes the Cat the wildest of all the wild animals, one who walked by himself and to whom all places were alike.
“But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.”
Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories, "The Cat that Walked by Himself", opening. Project Gutenberg eBook #2781. The text, read in part
At the end of the tale, between times and when the moon gets up and night comes, the Cat is still the Cat that walks by himself.
“But when he has done that, and between times, and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him.”
Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories, "The Cat that Walked by Himself", close. Project Gutenberg eBook #2781. The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- Marie-Louise von Franz, The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption (1999)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Beasts
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Cat.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/cat.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Camel: The spirit that kneels to be loaded. The Castle: The fortress of the treasure, hard to find and harder to enter. The Cave: The hidden place of transformation, inside the earth. The Centre: The still point around which everything turns.