Everybody Wants to Be A Cat: Duchess (The Aristocats)

Everybody Wants to Be A Cat: Duchess (The Aristocats)

Name meaning: English, “Woman of Nobility”

The sleek Parisian Persian is well-named. She is graceful, classy, and truly genteel, treating everyone from the horse Frou-Frou to a recalcitrant, drunken goose with the same respect. One might think it is because she has been so pampered that she is unaware that there are distasteful things in the world, but even when dirty, tired, and down on her luck, Duchess remains adaptable. She graciously accepts the offer of spending the night at O’Malley’s ‘pad’, and where another, snootier cat might have turned up her little pink nose at crumbing stucco and a torn, lumpy mattress, in doing so discovers trash-can buffets, hitchhiking, and jazz. Yet despite being used to bowls of cream and Bizet on the gramophone, she is open-minded and even curious about the jazz band’s romantically bohemian lifestyle. She never fails to show her love, concern, or a brave face she might not feel to her kittens. I am curious as to whether another smooth-talking alley cat might have been in Duchess’ past—after all, of her litter, only Marie resembles her purebred mother, whereas Toulouse is a Calico, and Berlioz and black shorthair. Yet technically Duchess is a single mother, and while love-‘em-and-leave-‘em is the way of the cat, surely in elite Edwardian-era France such behavior would be discussed behind gloved hands in parlors only in whispers. Duchess is charmed by the rakish, good-hearted Thomas O’ Malley, or as I prefer, Abraham DeLacey Gieuseppe Casey J. Thomas O’Malley the alley cat, who, streetwise and independent, falls for the sophisticated Duchess and her opinionated kittens. From Duchess and Mme Bonfamille (“good family”-get it?) the kittens learn impressionist painting and piano concertos, but they admire O’Malley’s exotic the-world-is-my-backyard freewheeling, and in experiencing their adventure, they find that the most rough-and-tumble are the most kind (Scat Cat), the most obedient the most two-faced (Edgar), and how to “think goose”.
Duchess quotes
Duchess: Aristocats do not practice biting and clawing, and things like that. It's just horrible.