Final Article of The Meadow Mouse by Theodore Roethke

Diah Widiastutik (20131111040)

Rusneesan Cheada (20131111015)

In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking

Sleeps the baby mouse I founding the meadow,

Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick

Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in,

Cradled in my hand,

A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling,

His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse,

His feet like small leaves,

Little lizard-feet,

Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away,

Wriggling like a miniscule puppy.

Now he's eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from

his bottle-cap watering trough--

So much he just lies in one corner,

His tail curled under him, his belly big

As his head; his bat-like ears

Twitching, tilting toward the least sound.

Do I imagine he no longer trembles

When I Come close to him?

He seems no longer to tremble.

But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is

empty.

Where has he gone, my meadow mouse,

My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?--

To run under the hawk's wing,

Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree,

To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat

I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,

The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,

The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising--

All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.

Analyzing:

“The Meadow Mouse” reflecting Theodore Roethke suffering with nature’s animals which he had found in a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking which is trembling and shock between the stick in the meadow. Then suddenly he picked up the little mouse and hugs him tightly in his arms, while the whole body of the mouse is trembling, his absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse, his feet like small leaves, little lizard-feet, whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away, and wriggling like a miniscule puppy as he feels that the mouse as if it was as his child. In the first stanza, where Roethke used a lot of words like “baby”, “cradled”, “little” and “puppy” to explain to the readers that they able to tell that the poet treats and look at the meadow mouse as if he’s looking at a baby of his own. It is also like the poet has his flashback about his childhood memory.

Most of the people usually didn’t care about the meadow mouse. They usually questioning about why should they care about the meadow mouse? But in this poem, Roethke cares about the animal or the field mouse which is looks like his childhood. The poet expressing about how we can “imagine” another person feels by reading to it.

About the title it means that the mouse is a mouse that the poet found in a field where Roethke brings the field mouse home, feeds it, and gives it a shoe-box home for hoping that the little fellow will be even unafraid by then.

Do I imagine no he no longer trembles

When I come close to him?

He seems no longer to tremble

But in one morning, the box is empty, and the poet questions the mode of its going, fearing danger from the hawk, owl, shrike, snake, or tomcat. Then the tiny mouse’s danger causes him to think of all helpless creatures that the meadow mouse will get struggles which can cause bad effect to him.

I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,

The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,

The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising—

All things innocent, hapless, forsaken

In this poet there is no moral issue at all, but it is about love between human and animal. Roethke makes a human correlation that he discovery about human conditions and parental worries over a child. Even though the world is fraught with danger, in the natural scheme of things, every parent knows their child will leave the safe environment of home to seek his own fortune in this dangerous world and even though the dangers are real, a parent must let the child go for their good shakiness as same as the poet do to the field mouse.

 We can break our hearts loving this world, but it never glances in our direction, never returns our love. Still, we love, and some men which the poet itself rush to alleviate suffering and even to save the meadow mouse. I think most of us would willingly go forth with the poet to save the meadow mouse who is in danger and loneliness. As said in the poem that the meadow mouse is gone from the shoe-box, we’d imagine its making its way through the meadow while overhead the hawk, owl, and tomcat where we don’t know what will happen to him like in the last sentence “All things innocent, hapless, and forsaken.”