Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Only the Animals, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Interconnectedness of Humans and Animals
Animals and War
Human Cruelty
Kindness and Compassion
Summary
Analysis
It’s after midnight and the tomcat still hasn’t returned to his spot near the narrator’s. The soldiers like the narrator, but they were disappointed that she’s not also a male cat. They don’t know, though, that the narrator has always felt she should’ve been a tomcat. Her owner, Colette, understands this. But what Colette doesn’t know is that the last time she came to secretly visit her evil sergeant husband, Henri, the narrator had stowed away in the car. And when the soldiers sent Colette away a little later, the narrator had been outside the car, distracted by a bird, and got left behind.
The narrator is presumably a female cat, if the soldiers are disappointed that she’s not a tomcat (male cat). When the cat notes that her owner, Colette, is the only being who understands the cat’s desire to be male, it suggests that people and animals can form close, meaningful relationships—and can understand each other perhaps better than a being of the same species could. The fact that the narrator stowed away in the car—presumably just so she could accompany Colette to the front—also speaks to the strength of their relationship.
Themes
The narrator knows that Henri is jealous of Colette’s relationship with her, so she stays far away from him. This means she stays at the muddy front—even though she’d rather hang out near the pigeon loft and catch one of the birds. Fortunately, Henri seldom comes to the front, and the soldiers are glad to have a cat around to deal with the rat problem.
Henri’s jealousy confirms that Colette and the narrator do indeed have a close, satisfying relationship. But the narrator’s impulse to avoid Henry at all costs suggests that he’s not just jealous—he may also be violent or dangerous toward the cat in some way.
Themes
When she visited, Colette was shocked to see how this part of the countryside looks now. She grew up in rural Burgundy, and the narrator accompanied her there once. But with the leaves blown off the trees and no songbirds, it’s hard to know what season or century it is. Now, between the narrator’s trench and the Germans, there’s nothing but mud.
Here, the narrator shows that war doesn’t just affect people—it also fundamentally changes the natural environment. War makes it impossible for the narrator to orient herself, as it seems like there’s nothing but mud and bare trees for miles. The mention of trench warfare, the French countryside, and the Germans also makes it clear that this chapter is set during World War I.
Themes
The tomcat returns at dawn. The narrator isn’t prepared for him; she’s busy lapping up some condensed milk that a young soldier offered her. She’d initially turned down the soldier’s offer so he’d eat it himself, but she couldn’t bear his disappointment. She casually climbs to the top of her parapet and the tom asks if she’s Kiki-la-Doucette. Kiki—the narrator—doesn’t recognize him and demands he leave within the next 15 seconds. The tom reminds her that he lived down the street from Colette. He and his owner had come to Colette’s apartment for a salon (i.e., gathering), which is where he’d first seen Missy wearing a tuxedo. Colette’s bulldog didn’t like him, but he and Kiki had shared a bowl of milk. Kiki remembers this.
Both Kiki and the soldier want to do something kind for one another: the soldier wants to share his milk with Kiki, while Kiki is willing to lose out on the opportunity for a meal to ensure the soldier has nourishment. But when Kiki ultimately accepts the soldier’s offer to appease him, the story shows that accepting someone’s act of kindness can actually be as selfless and meaningful as performing an act of kindness oneself. This passage also provides more context about Kiki and Colette. The details that the tomcat includes, such as the aside about seeing Missy in a tuxedo, suggest that Colette is the famous French writer Colette. She was in a relationship with a woman named Missy for a while, who often dressed as a man.
Themes
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The tomcat says his owner was in love with Colette. She pored over the newspapers and read the reviews of Colette’s performances out loud. The tom remembers hearing about the one where Colette acted like a cat. This memory is overwhelming for Kiki; Colette had observed her closely to put together the role—though Colette didn’t have to try hard to be catlike. Toby-Chien, Colette’s bulldog, didn’t mind that Kiki got most of the attention. Toby-Chien and Kiki chatted often, which inspired Colette’s regular column Animals in Dialogue—though they never talked about Colette’s latest scandals, like her onstage kiss with Missy.
Kiki’s feelings of overwhelm in this passage stem from the depth of her love for Colette. Colette’s careful study and skillful imitation of Kiki speak to their close connection, and the fact that Colette was catlike even when it wasn’t for a role suggests to Kiki that she and her owner weren’t so different from each other despite being different species.
Themes
The tomcat says that his owner hated Missy for dressing like a man. His owner believed that Colette really wanted a feminine love. Kiki thinks back to the apartment where she and Toby-Chien lived with Colette between her divorce from Willy and her marriage to Henri. Missy lived nearby and hosted salons (gatherings) for women who dressed as men. Since Kiki is angry at the tom for knowing so much about Colette and Missy, she leaps and swipes at him. The tom backs away, forlorn. Kiki spits that Colette and Missy aren’t together; Colette has remarried and has a baby daughter, Bel-Gazou. The tom disappears into a trench. Kiki stays on her parapet, moping. The tom was right—Colette was always going to leave Missy, though Kiki can’t figure out why Colette picked the hyper-masculine Henri.
Kiki reveals that she dislikes the tomcat because he knows so much about Colette and Missy’s relationship—which is part of Kiki’s own homelife and personal life. This again speaks to the interconnectedness between humans and animals; as Colette’s pet, Kiki is necessarily enmeshed in Colette’s life. Kiki also understands now that because Colette wrote so much about her life, her relationship with Colette isn’t as private and sacred as Kiki perhaps thought it was.
Themes
Late in the afternoon, after shooting at the Germans, the soldiers get the order to go over the top of the trenches. Kiki lets her adopted soldier squeeze her, but she can’t watch. She sneaks to the hospital and kitchen area. There’s nothing for the men to do until the advance is over, so they’ve hidden an egg from an old pony named Fufu. Fufu pulls stretchers when she’s working, but right now Kiki watches her search for her egg and lie down every time she hears an incoming shell. The tomcat calls to Fufu and tells her that the egg is under the tent flap. Then, he introduces Kiki to Fufu as being owned by one of Paris’s “most fascinating denizens.”
Even if Kiki’s heart is still with Colette, she still clearly cares about her adopted soldier’s wellbeing. She doesn’t want to watch him die. Back in the kitchen area, the game of hiding the egg from Fufu situates food as a symbol of people’s power over animals. It’s a fun game for them to withhold Fufu’s food and encourage her to search for it, when Fufu is probably just as hungry as the other soldiers.
Themes
Fufu asks if Colette put Kiki onto the streets like the tomcat’s owner did. The tom looks ashamed, but Kiki explains she arrived here accidentally. The tom says that Fufu’s owners wrote a letter to the commander-in-chief begging to keep their beloved pony. Fufu recites the letter with a faraway look in her eye. It didn’t work. The tom invites Kiki to hunt with him tonight, but Kiki tells him to leave her alone. She feels bad and decides to torment a robin.
The revelation that the tomcat’s owner turned him out speaks again to how domesticated animals are dependent on their caregivers for their livelihood. Without a person to care for him in a house, the tom likely had no choice but to come lurk around the trenches. But here, there’s not enough food, and he’s also at risk of being hurt in the course of the violence.
Themes
Kiki explains that she and Colette have always been interested in mules. This might be because, like mules, she and Colette never felt like they “fit within the boundaries of [their] sex or species.” So Kiki is thrilled to see pack mules arriving with panniers of food—but when she tries to talk to one, it can’t answer. The tomcat appears and explains that soldiers cut the mules’ vocal cords so they won’t bray and give away their position. Kiki studies the old man driving the mules. The mules seem to love him. The tom notes that he once saw a mule driver refuse to leave his team when they got tangled in barbed wire. They all died.
Saying that she and Colette never thought they “fit within the boundaries of [their] sex or species” speaks both to Colette and Kiki’s sexuality, as well as the idea that they had more in common with each other than they do with those of their own species. Mules, in Kiki’s mind, symbolize this in-between state. But mules are still animals—so they’re at the mercy of the people who care for them. Thus, they’ve been subjected to violence when people cut their vocal cords to help the war effort. The mules don’t have any stakes in the war—and yet, they have to suffer for the people who do.
Themes
The tomcat says that some of the mules are missing their tails because starving mules will eat other mules’ tails. Kiki declares that Colette would adopt the mules and take them to Paris. She watches a mule bite a sergeant’s backside and then act innocent. The tom insists that the mule did that to remind the cats that he’s more than something to pity.
In desperate situations, animals and people turn to desperate measures—just like how these starving mules eat each other’s tails to survive. But still, the tom insists that it deprives the mules of dignity to pity them. When given the chance, they can still momentarily assert themselves over their circumstances, as one mule does here by biting a sergeant’s backside.
Themes
When Kiki’s young soldier brings over food scraps for the cats, Kiki warns the tomcat to leave it alone. The tom looks offended and says he has his own soldier. Kiki, though, should eat the food—she might be all that’s keeping the soldier alive. Kiki looks up at her soldier’s shoulder. He’s been hurt, but not badly, and he now has a friend who helps him bind his feet.
Here, the tomcat proposes that he and Kiki, as hungry cats, aren’t the only ones who benefit from the soldiers’ kindness. Rather, it can be lifesaving for the soldiers to have something to care for and about. So it’s essential to accept the soldiers’ kind offerings if the cats want to help the soldiers stay alive.
Themes
Once everyone but the sentries is asleep that night, the tomcat asks Kiki to follow him. Kiki initially refuses, but she’s lonely and feels bad for the tom. She tells him that nothing is going to happen between them, since she doesn’t like toms much. The tom says he knows—Kiki was his biggest rival for lovers back in Paris. Kiki is surprised and admits that she hasn’t been lucky in love, but the tom suggests that no one needs a she-cat’s love when they’re an author’s muse. It’d be enough for him, at least. Kiki privately thinks that being an author’s muse is enough only some of the time.
Kiki implies that she wants to have relationships with cats, romantic and otherwise—just not with this particular tomcat. That Kiki doesn’t generally care for tomcats and has instead been involved with female cats points back to the idea that both Kiki and Colette subverted gender norms (neither of them “fit within the boundaries of [their] sex or species”). Alongside this, Kiki also indicates that having a human companion to love and love her in return isn’t always enough. The tomcat, though, seems to hold relationships with people in even higher esteem than Kiki does. He claims that he’d give up relationships with other cats if it meant having a person love him.
Themes
The cats allow a lonely sentry to pet them as they pass by. As the cats approach the next sentry, Kiki sees a massive Briand dog tied to a post. After growling softly at the cats, the dog turns back around. The tomcat whispers that the Briand is supposed to alert soldiers to nearby Germans with a low growl. Most of the military dogs can’t help but bark, but this one is good at his job. When the sentry quietly tells the dog to ignore the cats, the tom and Kiki slink away.
While the cats still serve an important purpose in the war (killing rats in the trenches and boosting soldiers’ morale), the Briand, like Fufu, has been actually drafted into the war effort. This is a reminder that animals have been assisting people at war for centuries, so wars aren’t really just human conflicts. The mention that most of the military dogs can’t master this low growl—it’s too engrained in them to bark—implies that people perhaps go too far in trying to mold animals’ natural behavior for the sake of the war effort.
Themes
The Briand keeps growling, so the sentry warns the dog that this had better not be about the cats and goes to fetch his commanding officer. When he arrives, the officer watches the dog skeptically and asks about cats. Though the sentry notes that the dog has been focused on a point out in no man’s land for a while now, the officer grouses that dogs don’t belong at the front. They’re good for morale but aren’t helpful beyond that. The sentry suggests they send up a flare, since it could either be a wounded soldier or a German raid. The officer tells the sentry to wake the other soldiers. Once the other soldiers are awake, the flare goes up. It illuminates five German soldiers.
While the last passage suggested that perhaps animals aren’t meant to be involved in war (which the commanding officer echoes here), this passage shows the unique set of skills that animals bring to the war effort. Here, the Briand does its job effectively of looking out for German soldiers and quietly alerting the sentry. It’s implied that, were it not for the Briand, the soldiers wouldn’t have known about the five German soldiers approaching quietly in the darkness.
Themes
The soldiers in the trench fire on the Germans. They kill three and take two prisoners. The officer looks stunned and says that he’ll make sure headquarters hears about the Briand. The sentry shares that supposedly, after Paris was saved, a pigeon who carried a crucial message received the Légion d’honneur. People sewed bands in the color of the medal’s ribbon around the bird’s leg when the medal kept falling off. The officer says nothing.
While much of the book criticizes how people rope animals into war, this anecdote about the heroic pigeon again nonetheless underscores that animals do bring a unique—and often desperately needed—set of skills to the war effort, and that animals should be honored for their contributions.
Themes
Kiki and the tomcat wait until everyone but the sentry is asleep. They creep closer to the Briand, who looks exhausted. When the tom mentions that the Briand might receive a medal, the Briand insists that he doesn’t care about a medal or marching in a parade. All he wants is to return to his sheep and his master without dishonor. The dog closes his eyes, and the tom tells Kiki that he has something to show her aside from the dog. They walk for a long time in silence, until they reach the end of the line.
The Briand confirms that he’s not doing this work for the medal. Rather, he’s doing his duty so that he can go back to the person and the job that he loves. This is a reminder that animals, for the most part, don’t have personal stakes in human conflicts like wars. They may participate, but the animals like the Briand show that their worlds and their concerns are much smaller and more intimate.
Themes
There, there’s a soldier reading a letter by the glow of a jar filled with glow-worms. The tomcat explains that soldiers get jars like this before major offensives. They’re supposed to be used for reading maps and such, but this soldier hides his jar, feeds the glow-worms slugs, and then spends his nights reading letters from his sweetheart. The tom knows who the letters are from because sometimes, the soldier reads them aloud.
While the Briand’s unique talents helped keep the soldiers alive by alerting them of approaching enemy soldiers, here the glow-worms help keep the love and connection alive between one soldier and his sweetheart back home. This speaks to the idea that, in war, animals either perform practical tasks (like the Briand, pigeon, and mules) or boost morale (like the glow-worms and the cats).
Themes
Kiki knows that Colette would be enchanted with this scene. Colette always got a faraway look on her face when she wrote by lamplight. She, Missy, and Kiki would come home late at night, and then Colette would call Kiki to come sit with her. Colette would then “slip[] into her own mind to write.” Kiki always resented this a bit, since Colette was so mentally distant in those moments, but Kiki would always “loyally” wait for Colette to return from her mind. She still detests one of Colette’s pieces in which she wrote about how engrossing it is to write. Now, Kiki wonders if there will be there anything for Colette to write about after the war. She thinks about how there’s no room for frivolity after this winter, and perhaps there’s no more room for Kiki in Colette’s life, either.
It’s significant that the intimate moment of the soldier reading letters from his sweetheart back home reminds Kiki of her owner, Colette. Although the love between the soldier and his sweetheart is romantic, this passage implies that Kiki’s love for Colette runs just as deep. And just as the soldier misses his beloved, Kiki misses Colette too—both now when they’re physically separated (like the soldier, Kiki is experiencing the war firsthand from the battlefield, while her beloved is safe back at home), but also in those moments when Colette was emotionally unavailable and wrapped up in her writing. On another note, Kiki implies that Colette writes frivolous things, but in the thick of World War I, it seem as though nothing will ever be light and innocent again.
Themes
Later that night, Kiki watches her adopted soldier lie beside his friend. She suspects that they’re in love. She watches as frost suddenly appears on everything, and it feels wrong to her to witness such a thing. She snuggles into her soldier’s feet until he’s called to wake up. When the soldiers receive boiled eggs for breakfast, Kiki thinks of how Fufu must’ve felt to watch the kitchen hands boil so many eggs, and how Colette used to eat boiled eggs with fresh cherries.
Perhaps it seems wrong for Kiki to see the frost appear because, as a former housecat, she’s never been outside to witness such a thing. For now, the frost reminds her of everything she’s missing from her previous life, and how wrong it is to be here at the front in the first place. Meeting other animals like Fufu has made Kiki more empathetic. She wants her soldier to eat, of course, but she also realizes that at times, the soldiers may eat at the expense of the animals.
Themes
The smell of the eggs in the trench reminds Kiki of a trip to the mountains she took with Colette. They’d take walks in the morning and could smell the sulfurous hot springs. They’d often walk to the park, where Colette would buy milk for Kiki. Children would run to Kiki, entranced by seeing a cat on a leash, and try to give her things. Now, Kiki marvels at the innocence—that of the children, and that of her and Colette.
Everything about the war and the trenches reminds Kiki of Colette—a mark of the close connection the two shared. But those happy memories also now represent an innocence that Kiki bleakly suggests is impossible to recreate. The war has fundamentally changed everything, for animals and people alike.
Themes
On that trip, Kiki became worried when Colette started spending time with an odd, unhappy couple staying at the hotel. They wanted to “adopt” both Colette and Kiki, and Kiki waited for Colette to grow bored of them. When Colette finally started to pack at the end of the trip, Kiki leapt into the suitcase. Colette knew—and said out loud—that Kiki wanted her to live a life with room for just the two of them.
Given how fondly Kiki describes her memories of Colette throughout the story, it’s unsurprising that Kiki wanted to lead a life that consisted of just her and Colette. Her bond with Colette was—and still is—the most important thing in Kiki’s life.
Themes
In the morning, the tomcat wakes Kiki up by quoting Colette’s writing about cats. He ignores her displeasure and says that the Persians used to release cats on the battlefield when they fought the Egyptians, since the Egyptians would rather surrender than hurt the cats. Kiki hisses. She’s annoyed; now that she’s awake, she can’t pretend anymore that she’s stretched out on Colette’s divan. They’re all at war now. The tom brings news that the Briand ran away and made it the hundreds of miles home. The commander in chief awarded the dog a medal and discharged him from service. Kiki is suddenly horribly jealous.
In mentioning how the Persians weaponized cats to defeat the Egyptians, the tomcat highlights how animals have been essential in war for millennia. But Kiki doesn’t want to think about cats on the battlefield because it reminds her of her own bleak reality—she’s not lounging around in Colette’s home but is instead sleeping in a muddy trench surrounded by soldiers in the thick of World War I. Learning that the Briand escaped the camp and made it all the way home painfully reminds Kiki that she’s still stuck here.
Themes
Sensing this, the tomcat asks if Kiki likes Bel-Gazou. Kiki spits that no cats like babies, but she doesn’t answer when the tom asks if Colette is a good mother. Colette is ambivalent about being a mother; she prioritizes her writing. Kiki doesn’t want to share that Colette prefers Kiki to Bel-Gazou—cats are less demanding than babies. The tom heads for his own trench and Kiki imagines the Briand’s journey home. She wishes she were a dog so she could survive the journey to Paris—even if Colette doesn’t want her anymore.
This passage again suggests that people and animals can, at times, have a closer connection than people can have with one another. Meanwhile, the news of the Briand’s escape forces Kiki to acknowledge her own weakness. Though she’s seemingly hardy enough to survive in the muddy trenches, she doesn’t have the strength to make it hundreds of miles home like the dog.
Themes
After a while, Kiki seeks out the tomcat in his trench. They watch the soldiers rooting for turtles engaged in a race. Several plod dutifully, one turns in circles, and the smallest carries another turtle on its back. The strength of that turtle reminds Kiki of seeing a teenage girl perform a feat in which she used her teeth to lift a table with a fat woman on it.
It’s possible to read the turtles as representations of Kiki’s options. She can keep marching forward at the trenches by taking her new reality day by day, she can continue to fruitlessly turn herself in circles by thinking about heading home without a real way to get there, or she and the tomcat can work together to get back to their owners in Paris.
Themes
Suddenly, the soldiers snap to attention. Henri appears, studies the soldiers suspiciously, and says he heard about the dog. He asks if it was in this trench. A soldier says it was in a different trench, but the soldiers here gave it treats. Henri is incensed that they’d feed a dog when men are starving, and he notices the cats. He tells the soldiers to get rid of them so they don’t spread disease. Kiki’s young soldier bravely says that the cats catch rats and lift the soldiers’ spirits, but Kiki knows Henri recognizes her. He threatens to shoot the cats if he sees them again—and to shoot any soldiers protecting them.
This passage circles back to the beginning of the chapter when Kiki noted that she avoids Henri at all costs—Henri’s rage and violent threat makes it clear to Kiki that she’s not safe here, either from the German snipers or from those on the French side. Henri is the first character in the collection to introduce the idea that for some people, it seems ridiculous, unwise, and unethical to feed animals when there are hungry people, too. Given that animals narrate the stories in the book, this perspective encourages readers to empathize with the animals—and see Henri as a heartless, cruel, and selfish person because of how he treats animals. As Henry Lawson said in “The Bones,” the animals in this chapter make Henri look worse.
Themes
Kiki’s soldier tells her to hide during the day. She tells the tomcat that she has to get back to Paris and Colette. He’s been waiting for her to realize this, and they decide to leave in the morning. At the other end of the trench, the turtle carrying its friend wins the race. The one turning in circles has dug itself into the earth and is no longer visible.
Again, the turtles show Kiki what will happen if she stays at the trenches and if she embarks on the journey back to Paris. Like the turtle digging itself into the ground by turning in circles, Kiki will be forced to wallow in her unhappiness if she stays and may end up metaphorically burying her head in the sand (i.e., try to forget about her bleak reality rather than facing it). But striking out on this journey with the tom may mean that Kiki has a higher likelihood of successfully getting home to Paris, just as the two turtles who partner together successfully win the race.
Themes
Rather than join the tomcat hunting in no man’s land, Kiki sits and watches her soldier and his friend sleep. She worries her soldier won’t survive; he’s too skinny. Colette, strong and flexible from exercising, would be better suited to war. Kiki recalls how Colette and Missy would exercise outside together, shocking passersby. Kiki looks up at the carrier pigeons flying above; they seem disoriented. Kiki thinks of the message she’d send Colette if she could, saying that she’s coming and asking her to save the pigeon for Kiki’s dinner.
In noting how ill suited her soldier seems for war, Kiki gestures toward the idea that war is inhumane for humans, too. And in noticing how disoriented the carrier pigeons look, Kiki suggests that war is universally unsettling, for animals and people alike.
Themes
The tomcat should’ve returned by now. The trench feels cold and empty without him. Kiki knows what’s happened, but she can’t move from her soldier’s feet. Instead, she’s going to imagine movement and maybe it’ll lead her toward her destiny—which is here, not in Paris.
Because of the chapter title, readers know from the outset that Kiki is going to die in the trenches, not make it home to Colette. And here, Kiki accepts her fate. By not going to find the tomcat, Kiki is more like the turtle turning in circles than the one carrying its friend across the finish line in the turtle race.
Themes
Kiki will wake the tomcat’s adopted soldier and alert him to the fact that the tom is trapped in wire out in no man’s land. The soldier will crawl out there as others wait for him—and the soldier will return with the muddy tom under his arm. It’ll be impossible to tell where the man ends and the cat begins. Kiki will wait on the parapet, both for the tom and for the moment a German sniper mistakes her fur for a soldier’s head. Her soldier and his friend will hold her body and as Kiki dies, the soldiers will look like Colette and Missy dressed as men. Finally, Kiki will know she’s almost home.
Imagining the muddy cat and soldier and thinking it’s impossible to tell who’s who suggests that war is an equalizer: it turns everyone into muddy, indistinct victims, regardless of if they’re a human or an animal or what side they’re on. Kiki’s hunch that the tom is caught in barbed wire echoes the tomcat’s earlier anecdote about the mules and mule driver both dying when they got caught in wire. The trappings of the war are universally deadly.
Themes
