Duality
The story told in this children’s novel is constructed upon the appealing premise that everyone comes into the world with their own personal rabbit that brings good luck and their own personal black cat seeking to cross their paths with bad luck. This premise sets up the portrayal of these totems of luck as working at cross-purposes, but always in a sort of tandem. In other words, the rabbit doesn’t bring good luck which is undermined by the black cat and neither is bad luck necessarily made better by the rabbit. It is not just possible, but very likely that one will experience good luck on account of the rabbit one minute and bad luck on account of the cat the next manifested in ways having nothing to do with each other. The underlying thematic message is that existence is all about duality and balancing the scales. The rabbits and cats work like the Yin and the Yang providing positive and negative experiences of luck. Until that is, one particular black cat decides to scheme to the luck which befalls his person all to himself and all of it bad. It is this toppling of the natural order of duality that creates chaos.
The Mysterious Forces of Fate
The boy whose good luck rabbit has become the target of his bad luck cat is named Cecil. Cecil learns about the personal rabbits and black cats of the world from a mysterious gentleman eating scones in his favorite café. Since his delivery of this important information to Cecil is framed under odd circumstances and conveyed without much background information or contextual shaping, Cecil isn’t entirely sure that the stranger isn’t just simply strange or maybe even a little crazy. One of his most important messages delivered to Cecil flies by so fast that even the reader may not immediately catch its significance. Of the rabbits and cats, he notes, “One almost never sees them, of course, but there are many simple truths in the world that one never actually sees.” Collectively as a duo, the rabbits and cats acting as totems of good and bad luck represent duality, but individually they represent the invisible forces of fate and destiny. Unless one is especially attentive, it is practically impossible to recognize and identify any single moment when a “rabbit” has brought good fortune into your life or a “cat” has crossed your path with bad luck. In fact, many decisions are made based on a complete misreading of luck. Sometimes something happens in our lives that we interpret as either a turn for the good or a turn for that bad that in the long run proves to be just the opposite. This is what the mystery man is alluding to when he speaks of simple truths that we often can’t see with clarity.
The Importance of Loyalty
Cecil’s lucky rabbit named Leek is absolutely devoted to the person to whom he has been given the purpose of bringing good fortune. Cecil’s unlucky black cat named Milliken is loyal to his purpose of bringing bad fortune to Cecil. Both are dedicated and hard workers and both are necessary components of the duality which maintains balance in Cecil’s world, but only Leek is loyal to the person rather than the system. This is just one example of how the novel examines the nature of loyalty. Another demonstration is provided by the mysterious figure in the café when he offers a clue to his identity. He is a great magician who once had an assistant named Imbrolio. This assistant stole his magic hat, started calling himself The Great Imbrolio, and is the charlatan responsible for stealing not only Leek but countless other good luck rabbits. He is the personification of disloyalty. Over the course of the novel, multiple other examples of loyalty are demonstrated to illustrate how trust and friendship are essential components involved in the process of making one’s luck from scratch that isn’t dependent entirely upon the fickleness of the invisible.
