The Tiger Who Came To Tea

I think Sophie and her mother were very lucky to get off so lightly and should have done a more in depth dynamic risk assessment of the whole tiger situation.

my idle musing interpretation is that Sophie's mum has got an eating disorder- most likely bulimia.

The tiger represents this.

She attempts a civil and ordered tea, but troughs the lot. Sophie can't recognise her mother's behaviour and projects it on to that of a tiger.

well that's very true redlentil - all the best texts can be read on multiple levels and speak to the different fears/desires in different kinds of readers.

I think we are all agreed that the food orgy is a symbol for quite a different type of desire though - there was an interesting prog on radio 4 about food in children's literature and Michael Rosen made the point that food orgies are used because it's one of the acceptable forms of desire that you can write about in children. As he said, in adult literature it would normally be sexual desire, but you need something to fill that space.

RedLentil, I hope you will be including this version, which is where Roald Dahl got the idea for his, I suspect.

Ah, theyoungvisiter. That is very persuasive.
Very interesting re the food.

I'm just printing out 4 versions of Little Red Riding Hood for the class tomorrow and will be using the dangerous male desire kind of argument there.

Shall we read it as both/and rather than either/or?

Lays out plate of to lure Cory out from under the table.

I've always maintained that the mother is clinically insane. Just look at Dad's expression when she and Sophie are telling him all about the tiger.
"Not another imaginary, demented episode again. When am I going to come home to a proper bloody dinner??!!" thought Dad.
To add to that, poor Sophie has to wear her night dress out to the cafe. Poor love.

Cory, you will get on brilliantly. English is a great subject to do, because it asks you to think about assumptions you didn't realise you were making. (It's a very mumsnet-like experience in that way). I'm generally on the Aug 08 postnatal thread if you need a hand at any stage.

I teach part-time now, and I'm starting with some newbies tomorrow and the first thing they have to read is the first story ds ever told. There isn't much to learn about storytelling that can't be learned from a toddler and their story collection.

A first for redlentil methinks...

However I would like to offer a different interpretation of the Tiger.

I see him as a figure of patriarchy, of male desire - the constant demands to be fed, satiated, served by the women of the household.

Note that the tiger is referred throughout as "He" and that a tiger is a common motif for sexually demanding, aggressive behaviour (cf "tiger in the sack" etc)

The tiger is, in literature, frequently used a contrasting, aggressive, motif to lamb-like innocence and the acceptance of suffering. Compare to William Blake's Tyger Tyger - "When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"

By exploring the theme within the "safe" context of children's literature, the young (female) reader is simultaneously warned of the danger of men's untrammelled desire and of the unwisdom of admitting a strange male into the house.

At the same time she is given a coping mechanism to assuage and divert this desire - food. By stuffing the tiger with food-stuffs Sophie and her mother are able to divert his dangerous sexual energy into a safe channel.

The purchase of the tiger food is both an implicit warning of the possibility that the "tiger" may revisit Sophie when she is older, and a reminder of the need to take "precautions", should such an event occur.

MArvellous redlentil. We usually read it in a Jungian psychoanalyst voice (German, natch) in the midnight household for all of the reasons you have so eloquently noted.

Though I can't help adding a rather sarcastic 'thank goodness!' when daddy appears to save the day with his 'good idea'.

RedLentil, you're scaring the shit out of me! I've got to give my first seminar in the English department on Friday - I can't cope!

....to Zoo or not to Zoo?

I'd say chuck the blaggard in a cage!

600 times?...you will have spotted the clever sub-plot then...

I'm putting my phd in English to good use on original research and getting accused of plagiarism.

I've read the book at least 600 times - a girl has to keep her mind busy you know.

RedLentil,
You are absolutely spot on.
This book is all about sex.
It's filth!

Sophie's mother's a drunk.

I haven't seen the other threads, TheElephant.
Off to hunt for them.

The tiger food is interesting: do they buy it

a)so they can offer the tiger a more restrained experience if he comes back (they resolve to experience desire in less destructive ways)?

b)because they wish for him to come back and buying it marks for them their shared desire for this to happen?

c) To signal the ongoing presence of their transgressive desires. Daddy is, after all unlikely to look in the cupboards which are spaces in the book only known to women and tigers.

And why the trumpet? One option is for the tiger to return. The other is for the women to leave the home and follow this siren call.

Back to the playdough for me ...

RedLentil - nice ideas, but....think they were all just scammed.

Ok, the tiger is a figure for women's desire in the book.

Sophie allows the tiger into the house because she has not learnt that women's desires should be expressed only in limited,'palatable' forms.

Notice that the tiger 'can't be' any of the men who routinely visit the house - so even though he is male he is a figure for an expression of the women's feelings.

Both mummy and Sophie appear comfortable with the tiger and encourage him as he satisfies his (their) insatiable desire for fulfilment.

His desires though also wreak havoc in the home, leaving it unstable. The woman's work of washing, cooking and cleaning is barely possible in the house when he has finished.

When daddy comes home and sees the destruction there is no sign of the tiger: from his point of view there is clearly a link between the destruction and unrestrained consumption he sees and the women in front of him.

He restores patriarchal order by applying reason to the situation with his 'good idea'.

The mother is old enough to know that a woman gets more security in life by accepting 'little treats' from patriarchs than by demanding all her desires are met.

She accepts the offer of tea and Sophie is now aligned with her mother as they head out for their sausages and chips and ice-cream.

Both women know the secret about the existence of desire. Both keep the gleeful memory of what unrestrained desire feels like.

Both consign desire and the tiger to the past to keep daddy happy. And the tiger is never seen again.

Howzat.

In the transition stage of labour with dd2, I recited this book as a way of keeping calm.

doesn't anyone else think that mummy spent all day on here instead of getting tea sorted for the evening?

many a thread analysing this book

tiger has it all sussed. I admire his charming ways to persuade gin soaked housewives to open their doors/ pantry and alcohol cupboard to him.

Tiger is a freeloader, trust me,...I went out with him once or twice. Ended up in same skankey cafe as Sophies family frequent.