The Song of the Jellicles

The Jellicles’s moonlight dance rituals have a spiritual feeling, but to fully understand the scope of the spiritual themes in the poem, it is important to understand the broader world of cats Eliot created in his poetry. In the musical Cats, the characters focus on the Jellicle choice, which is a ritual the cats perform to decide which one will ascend to the Heaviside layer—the play’s version of heaven. A letter Eliot wrote about ending the poem with the cats ascending to heaven inspired the Heaviside layer.

While Eliot thought of the Jellicle Ball and the Heaviside layer as intertwined, the actual poem feels more pagan than Christian. The moon acts as a kind of conjurer of the Jellicles, waking them from sleep and bringing them out into the night. It even seems to call them to the Heaviside layer, as the cats “wait for the Jellicle Moon” (Line 12), as if it speaks to them the way a deity would.

The cats also seem to have a direct connection to the moon, exemplified most by the line “Jellicle Cats have moonlit eyes” (Line 24). This line connects the cats with the moon in a way no other line does, suggesting the moon's light entrances them.