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21 pages 42 minutes read

Robert Burns

To a Mouse

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1786

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Themes

Biospherical Egalitarianism

Biospherical egalitarianism is the idea that all creatures across all biospheres are worthy of equal consideration and treatment. This usually expresses itself as arguments that animals should be treated with the same moral logic with which humans treat one another and that animals have a right to live alongside humans. Though the term and modern concept of biospherical egalitarianism is far too recent to have influenced Burns’s work, many of its core tenets are on display in “To a Mouse.”

Burns’s speaker presents and demonstrates many of the principles that underlie biospherical egalitarianism. He clearly values non-human life and states that he would be “loaith to rin an’ chase [the mouse] / Wi’ murd’ring prattle” (Lines 5-6). The word “murd’ring,” which normally only refers to the killing of another human, signifies that the speaker sees the killing of a mouse as having an equal moral weight. Likewise, he sympathizes with the creature's desire to live, even if it means impacting his own life. The speaker states that the mouse “maun live” (Line 14) even if it “may thieve” the speaker’s own crop to do so. He views the food the mouse steals as “a sma’ request” that he is willing to oblige for the sake of another life (Line 16).

The speaker believes these principles of human-animal egalitarianism so staunchly that he considers those who exploit “Man’s dominion” over nature as earning the animal’s “ill opinion” of humanity (Lines 7-8), which he seems to share. Moreover, he sees those that exploit nature in this way as breaking an unspoken “social union” between humans and nature (Line 8).

Interspecies Social Unions

Moving from the assumption that animals are worthy of human respect and consideration, the poem makes further claims about the relationships between humanity and non-human animals. The “social union” of nature that the speaker describes in the second stanza (Line 8), suggests that the natural world formerly had a social order that excluded humanity. While this exclusion is likely due to humanity’s claim of “dominion” over nature (Line 7), which ultimately resulted in this union being “broken” (Line 8), the poem is rife with suggestions that this social union is still possible, even between humans and non-human animals.

“To a Mouse” focuses on the speaker’s sympathy for the mouse whose nest he destroys. This sympathy comes, in part, from the speaker’s identification with the mouse and her struggles. From the beginning of the poem, the speaker talks to the mouse using the familiar second-person pronoun “thou” and tells the mouse that she “need na start awa sae hasty” (Line 3). This familiar second-person pronoun, still used in Scots, assumes a friendly intimacy between interlocutors. This pronoun, combined with the speaker’s wish that the mouse does not run away, suggests that the speaker feels an immediate connection with the creature.

This connection is later expanded upon through an appeal to the creatures’ shared mortality. The speaker refers to the mouse as both an “earth-born companion” and a “fellow-mortal” (Lines 11, 12), and in so doing reveals his concerns about death. The speaker insists that the mouse is “no thy-lane” in her suffering (Line 37) and suggests that they are connected through their struggle. This connection between the human and the non-human is likely the kind of “social union” the speaker talks about in Line 8. Though the full extent of the social union is not explored in the poem, commiseration and shared sympathies between species is clearly an essential part. Without any hope of such a union, after all, there would be no point in speaking the poem to the mouse.

Life’s Suffering and Uncertainty

The themes of biospherical egalitarianism and interspecies social unions both hinge on the idea that “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley” (Lines 39-40). If life were fair, there would be no need to commiserate or to be concerned about the moral rights of non-human species. It is only by dint of life’s unfairness that these things become important. Though the poem’s speaker does, at times, entertain a light-hearted tone and speak of potential blessings (Line 17), the poem’s subject and themes presume the inevitability of suffering.

The implicit setting of “To a Mouse” places the speaker and the mouse in the midst of their overwintering preparations. For both of them, it is critical that they obtain or create adequate food and shelter to “thole the Winter’s sleety dribble” (Line 35). For the mouse, this means creating her nest. The speaker’s accidental destruction of mouse’s nest, then, means that he has exposed the mouse to winter’s harsh, potentially fatal, elements. The section of this guide on Symbols & Motifs focuses on some of the nuances of this preparation through examination of some of the objects involved.

Regardless of his preparations, the speaker is well-acquainted with suffering due to no fault of his own. The “prospects drear” he remembers might refer to crop failures, poverty, or any number of pains he has endured. What is important is that the mouse’s destroyed “housie” and the speaker’s own “fields laid bare an’ waste” (Lines 19, 25) demonstrate that both encounter obstacles in their attempts to shelter themselves from the uncertainties of life which make the speaker “guess an’ fear” (Line 48).

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