In “The Death of Benny Paret,” Norman Mailer uses imagery to honor and mourn Paret with his audience who has a knowledge of boxing. Paret is a victorious, Cuban, boxer whose victories began to descend over time. As Paret fought against Griffith, he started to wilt because Griffith was a strong boxer. Mailer describes Griffith as “a cat ready to rip the life out of a huge boxed rat,” which he eventually did. A cat and a rat are considered enemies, and if a cat sees a rat, its urge is to kill it. Griffith is the cat and Paret is the rat. As Paret began to show weakness, Griffith was ready to kill Paret. The audience is able to see how brutal and aggressive Griffith is in the boxing ring, and that caused the unlikely death of Paret. Because of