The Rabbi's Cat

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature III

23 May 2011

            The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar was a very good story. The story has a very good plot and the graphic panels bring the reader into the story by appealing to the reader’s vision. So when reading this a person gets more than just one single focus. A person could read this by just looking at the pictures because they tell the story so well. Of course the story can be read just like a regular book, by just reading the bubbles or one can read both the pictures and the bubbles at the same time.

When reading the panels one can tell when a scene is important because Sfar will make the panel more detailed. Also he changes how the characters actually look so as to amplify their emotions. For example at the end of chapter 2 Sfar completely distorts the cat so that the reader will know that the cat is very angry. Consequently, Sfar uses colors and shapes to show what the cat thinks is important or not, and therefore what Sfar thinks is important. Like when the rabbi’s rabbi was talking Sfar put shapes with squiggly lines instead of words to show that he thought the rabbi’s words were meaningless. Also, in chapter 3 when the family goes to Paris, Sfar makes the panels gray when in Algeria the panels were always bright and colorful. He is saying that the colonial powers and their native lands are dark, dreary, and truly inferior to the land in which they are trying to colonize. Unfortunately, the rabbi’s daughter has been colonized and the rabbi himself has been changed by his trip to Paris; like in Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga where Tambu changes because of her time at the missionary, she is colonized. The rabbi’s daughter reminds me of her, and the rabbi reminds me of Lucia.   

This story is really eye opening too. It is trying to get people to see that people might be different, but they are still people. It shows that people who are different can still be friends, like when the rabbi left his house and met up with the an Arab, and they had a great time traveling together or when the rabbi met his son-in-law’s father who was not religious at all. They had a great time chatting together. Seeing people as human beings no matter their nationality or skin color is something the world really should learn. It would make things so much better for everyone. I like to think that I am like the rabbi. That I can pray and be faithful to God, but still have a open mind about things. He is someone people should try to emulate.