Kittens by Maki Kureshi– A Critical Analysis

(Final Assignment)

Submitted to:
Miss Maria Aleem

Submitted by
Hamna Khan (026)
BS English -VII

Department of English
Lahore Garrison University, Lahore
Analyze the poem in your own words. Write the main idea in the first paragraph and explanation
below it.

Maki Kureshi's, 'Kittens' is a multifaceted piece of poetry, capable of being dissected on multiple
levels. Its interpretations, both connotative and denotative are diverse and yet unified at the point
of identification of and introspection upon individual, social and geo-political ills. 'Kittens' if
analyzed literally, with its imagery of a cat and its newborns speaks out to the question of
human-animal relationship on a more individual level and the dynamics of animal manipulation
at the hands of men. But on a more interpretive level it can be established as a perfect example of
Maki Kureshi as a descendant of the colonized, 'writing back to the Empire' and is heavily
punctuated with symbolism indicating imperial double-standards and the deceptive barbarianism
of the imperial colonizers inflicted upon the colonized  under the guise of humanitarian
advances. It also establishes the colonizer-colonized relationship as that of a master and its pet;
the pet being entirely at the disposal of its owner worthy of being the collateral damage in a
much more self-centered imperialistic scheme. If dissected on a more generalized social level the
poem also speaks to the problem of overgrowth of the world population and the consequent
misery that the imbalance in the ratio of the quantity of resources and their proportional
provision to the amount of mouths to be fed, causes. It also draws upon the narrative of a
personality conflict rooted in diaspora as the writer is unable to decide which cultural way to
adopt; the Eastern blunt and painful execution or the European sugar coated one; nevertheless
both obviously resulting in the suffering of the weak. The poem hence, can also be seen in a
socialistic light with the world being a macrocosm of nations with the European ones being the
bourgeoisie and the rest being the proletariat worthy of being executed if not needed.

The first stanza of the poem starts with the projection of an image of the birth of 'too many'
kittens making even the mother cat worried. This imagery of a collective disownment of the
kittens by all, including the mother cat, the cat owner and the kind friends, reflects the state of
sub-continent's (the mother cat) misery at being unable to take care of its children (the 'over-
numbered' citizens). Coated in a simple scenario of a cat owner upset over the problem of too
many kittens to keep, Maki Kureshi presents a bigger picture of population rising to a point of
citizens being disposable as they ultimately are left with no umbrella to survive under, not
national (the mother cat), not imperialistic (the cat owner) and not international (the kind friends;
international alliances). Socialistic theory criticizes capitalism as an imbalance of power, with
the privileged being a few and the disposable being many, same as the equation between the
kittens' fate deciders  in the poem's first stanza and the disposable litter of kittens. Maki Kureshi
realizes that this problem is universal but she also understands that historically the way the Sub-
continental leaders have dealt with this problem and the way that the European imperialists have
dealt with it, is different regardless of the intention being the same; manipulative. The sub-
continental aristocracy bluntly shunned the poor with an open announcement of their
abandonment to the streets ('bazaar'; a market for their labor to be sold at an undignified cost) left
to their individual fate, where as, the Europeans played out a different strategy and inflicted the
same manipulation and abandonment upon their colonies by first lying to them about their
intentions and then slowly killing them like drowning cats in warm water, in an attempt to save
their own selves from an expected rebellion.
These too many kittens being the underprivileged, illiterate and unemployed masses of Pakistan
in specific and the global colonies in general become vulnerable to the arrogance and the
manipulation of either the elite or of harmful international agents like the imperial British. The
second stanza of the poem highlights the hurdles that the vulnerable portion of the masses face.
Same like abandoned kittens, these poor street dwellers 'live off of pickings' and are available to
be stepped upon by the powerful. Maki Kureshi in the last four lines of the poem's second stanza
draws upon a sad reality of our society that even if the poor population gets saved from being
manipulated into unfair labor and illegal activities, they will ultimately starve as there is an
absence of an alternative livelihood for them. The parallel that Kureshi outlays between the poor
extras of the world and an unwanted litter of kittens intersects metaphorically on both being
equally unwanted, helpless and vulnerable. This suffering ultimately quietens  them as they
'squeal' a little less with each passing day.

The poem is written in free verse and has a very personal tone of narration  to it which is in
contrast with its universal application. Maki Kureshi with an innocent question in the last stanza
encloses the whole poem into a single interrogative line as she questions if her affiliation should
be with the European way of manipulating the masses or it should be true to her own culture's
way of disposing off the unwanted. In the last stanza of the poem Kureshi paints a picture of the
European way of drowning unwanted kittens, ridden with deception and lies. Same like the
kittens, the Europeans upon their invasion in the subcontinent came under the guise of saviors
and ultimately drowned the population by playing smart and turning the other eye while the local
populace suffered. Same as using 'warm' water to drown the kittens (an apparent humanitarian
act of making them suffer less) the Europeans showed their colonized population gains of no
reality all the while slowly killing them. They patted the people of subcontinent with one hand
and picked their pocket with the other. The warm water does not reduce the cruelty of the act and
so the European ritual of executing the kittens is no less brutal and inhumane than the eastern
one. They blind their subjugates into false promises and kill them very cleverly. Maki Kureshi
after establishing the European way of things reflects upon a post-colonial dilemma of identity
and who to really associate with, the West or the East? Should she as a product of a colonial past
relate to the British influence on her brought up or the Pakistani one? Should she blind her
subjugates  and lead them to a slow deceptive death or should she bluntly abandon them to the
streets as a fodder for the canines? The closing of the poem with a question is a wonderful
technique by Kureshi which leaves the reader with an end open to the answering of the question
as per their own appeal in an attempt to finding a resolution to the mental diaspora which is the
most prominent legacy of sub-continent's colonial past.