Ode to the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes

By Thomas Gray Presentation by Paul Hawkinson and Torin Stott

Title Analysis Before

The title is a summary of what the poem is about. It tells what to expect in the poem. The title makes you expect the cat to drown.

Paraphrase
Sitting next to a sh bowl a tabby cat, Selima, rests looking into the water. Her moving tail, her round face, soft paws, patterned fur, jetted ears, and dark green eyes show that she is content. Still looking, she sees two beautiful forms that shine with golden light. The sh see the cat reaching to get them without success, what cat can't resist sh? She stretched further this time, and fell o the slippery ledge into the water, meowing in vain for help. One bad step can be impossible to recover from, and be cautious, because not everything you see that is pretty is safe or benecial.

Connotation
The poem has an overall negative connotation. A word that denes the connotation is depressing but moralistic. The death of the cat is not to be taken literally, it is symbolic of the saying all that glitters is gold. The cat seeing the golden sh, is entranced and falls into the water and drowns. A joke is shown when the poet tells of the cat reaching up eight times. This is based on the belief that cats have nine live. I think that the author is telling about how the cat losses all nine of its lives. The joke is added so that you don't see the cat drowning as literal. This adds to the poem's negative connotation because the joke is dark and sick.

Attitude

The poet's tone is non-caring. It seams as if the poet did not care whether the cat dies or not. It is almost as if he just wants to get his point across.

Shifts
There is a shift at the end where the speaker shifts from telling a story to telling a moral. There is a shift for the cat. At the start the cat was calm, but at the end the cat was frantic and dying.

Title Analysis After

Afterwards we think the author named the poem the way he did to lure people in to teach them a lesson. The title catches people's attention.

Theme

Curiosity is a good thing as long as you are cautious. Not everything that looks great is good.