To a Mouse Essay Questions

How does the speaker compare his own experience to that of the mouse? In which ways does he argue that his experience is preferable, and in which ways does he argue that the mouse's is preferable?

The poem's speaker is aware that humans like himself hold power over other animals, and he argues that the sources of that power are both a blessing and a burden. The catalyst for the speaker's words to the mouse is itself a demonstration of human power. He is able, through both physical force and agricultural technology, to destroy the mouse's hard-won shelter with no effort at all. He then notes that, because of his agricultural prowess, he has a surplus of food while the mouse must steal morsels to stay alive. At the same time, he argues that these seeming advantages aren't without their downsides. For one thing, he is upset to see that the mouse fears him, and realizes that human power alienates him from the natural world. Furthermore, he believes that humanity's unique intelligence, though it may be an advantage in terms of survival, can also be a source of negative emotions that the mouse will never have to confront.

Identify the typical attributes of the "Burns stanza" and describe their use in this poem.

A Burns stanza earned its name because it was most famously used by Robert Burns himself, but it was popular in Scottish poetry prior to Burns's career. These stanzas consist of six lines, following an AAABAB rhyme scheme. While the "A" lines use tetrameter, the "B" lines are written in dimeter, and are thus only about half the length of the others. Thus, in the first stanza of "To a Mouse," the first three lines as well as the fifth end with the long "E" sound of "thee" and "beastie." These four lines each consist of nine syllables—essentially a modified iambic trimeter with an extra unstressed syllable at the line's end. The third and fifth lines of the stanza end with the words "brattle" and "pattle" and each consists of only five syllables. The shorter "le" endings of these two "B" lines make them sound even more abrupt, in contrast to the lengthy "E" vowels that close out the longer lines. Indeed, the shorter lines of a Burns stanza have an abrupt and often jarring effect, both because they appear unexpectedly after a pattern of longer lines have been created, and because they are shorter and choppier than the long lines. Here, that abruptness mimics the suddenness and mild awkwardness of the speaker's encounter with the mouse.