The Eyes of the Panther
"The Eyes of the Panther" is a short story by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer
Plot summary
Jenner Brading, a young rural attorney, finds himself dumbfounded when Irene Marlowe refuses his marriage proposal. She has clear affection for him but insists that she is insane; she later describes it as akin to
Long ago when Irene was in her mother's womb, her parents lived in cabin in a more rustic area with their firstborn, a daughter. Her father, Charles Marlowe, was a typical woodsman and regularly went out into the wild to hunt for food.
One day as Marlowe prepares to leave, his wife portends something horrible will happen and beseeches him to stay. Marlowe assures her that he will be all right. Late that night a panther appears at the window and scares the mother. She clutches her infant tightly to her chest as she waits frozen in terror. When Marlowe returns, he finds his wife emotionally traumatised and the baby accidentally smothered to death in her embrace. Irene was born several months after this but her mother died in childbirth.
Jenner asks Irene how this could mean that she is insane. She replies that a person born under such circumstances must be insane. As she leaves, Jenner believes he sees a panther. He runs after Irene, but as she arrives at her house Jenner can see no panther.
Several nights later, he finds a panther has crept into his room. He shoots it and it flees. When he and others pursue it by following the blood trail, they find not the dead beast but Irene's body.
Analysis
"The Eyes of the Panther" is an early example of werewolf fiction featuring an innocent (rather than criminal) werewolf. Irene's condition is blamed on a kind of prenatal curse. The idea may be traced to Cardillac's prenatal curse in Mademoiselle de Scuderi, by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1819).
Bierce anticipates the
Film adaptations
"The Eyes of the Panther" was adapted for the screen twice. One version was developed for Shelley Duvall's Nightmare Classics series and was released in 1989. It runs about 60 minutes. A shorter version was released in 2006 by director Michael Barton and runs about 23 minutes.
In 1930, Val Lewton was inspired by reading Bierce to write his own story about a panther woman, "The Bagheeta". It was published in Weird Tales the same year and was the germ for his 1942 film Cat People.[4]
References
- ISBN 9781572330184.
- ISBN 9789042022645. P. 168.
- ISBN 9780809531226. P. 150.
- ^ British Film Institute Film Classics. Vol. 1. Taylor & Francis, 2003. P. 572.