Analysis of 'Rat Song', by Margaret Atwood

Kanye West said it best, “Everybody knows I’m a M*f**ing monster” and honestly, as humans we are.

Animals by Simon Rich is an outstanding short story which takes a unique perspective on the everyday life in a classroom. The story is written from the point of view of a hamster who spends his tortured life entrapped in a cage. From the first point in this story, it is clear that the purpose of the writing is not to understand the hamster, but rather to analyze the different actions of the people, and to discover that how they act towards the hamsters reflects on their character. It is curious to view the everyday interactions of people through a different set of eyes, that is done by humanizing the narrator’s perspective. Based on the actions of the many people and the treatment of the class pet, the author suggests that human nature is very much a product of the financial circumstances a person is subjected to.

With all of that being said, the book I am reflecting on is entitled Even the Rat was White. This book was written by Robert V. Guthrie and includes a new foreword by William H. Grier. The purpose of this reflection is to review what I’ve read and to present a recollection of the emotions and experiences brought on by the reading of this book. This reflection will be outlined in different sections according to certain chapter pairings. Every chapter will be discussed in groups of two except for the last chapter of nine and then will be followed by a summary of the information presented.

The poem suddenly becomes much darker in the last stanza and a Billy Collins explains how teachers, students or general readers of poetry ‘torture’ a poem by being what he believes is cruelly analytical. He says, “all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it”. Here, the poem is being personified yet again and this brings about an almost human connection between the reader and the poem. This use of personification is effective as it makes the

In the poem “To a Mouse” by Burns, the speaker writes an apology to the mouse for the way it gets treated by humans. The speaker describes the mouse as a “sleek, tiny, timorous, cowering beast” that is running away from humans. He tells the mouse that he does not need to run away from him. He says to the mouse, “why dash away, so quick, so rash, in a frenzied flash when I would be loath to run after you”. The speaker means no harm but the mouse’s first instinct is to run when he sees humans because he expects to get chased by humans. The speaker understands the reasons for the mouse sometimes stealing food. The narrator says “I have no doubt you sometimes shiver; What of it, friend? You too must live!” He knows that the mouse must find a way to get food, so it can survive. The little mouse had a home-built to keep warm but the farmer with the plow unintentionally destroyed its home. When apologizing to the mouse the speaker says “Your tiny house lies in a ruin, its fragile walls and-rent and strewn! Now nothing’s left to build you a new one of mosses green.” The mouse plans to have a home for winter gets destroyed. The farmer destroying the mouse's home shows that dreams and plans can be destroyed by something or someone.

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut was written during the twentieth century, which was the height of industrialization and technological advancements. The common hope during this time was that science could transform the world. This novel illuminates the flaws in this kind of thinking, and by doing so, points out how our negligent use of nature's laws has created some of the greatest tragedies know to humankind.

This is hinted at when he states that the mouse "feedeth still in doubt of deep deceit". Although the mouse has been hurt before and fears for a next time it will be captured while feeding, it still needs to feed to survive, although it still feeds in "doubt of deep deceit". Another place the speaker hints at this attitude is towards the end of the poem where he describes the "game", or relationship, he has with the woman as "grievous" since it "follows fancy dazzled by desire". Through only these two places in the poem, the speaker is able to create that tone of longing that goes hand in hand with the dominant tone of distrust and

Quite a bit of Ratched's character is apparent in her name. McMurphy professes it "Rodent shed" amid an early area of the novel, demonstrating that she has rat like characteristics of working unobtrusively, rapidly, and to the disservice of her casualties. The peruser is reminded that rats were the bearers of the Black Plague amid the Middle Ages, and Ratched taints the healing facility's orderlies, understudy attendants, advertising work force, and patients with her unreasonable longing for request.

“The Mouse” is a short story written by H.H Munro. The main characters are Theodoric, the mouse, and the blind lady. The author Munro writes the story in third person and uses an omniscient view. The setting of the story takes part in the vicarage, the stable, and the ends in train compartment. The tone used by the author to engage his readers is an exciting, thrilling fast paced tone that bring the characters to life. To strengthen the thrilling exciting tone, the author uses phrases such as: “he was not even alone in his own clothes. “A warm, creeping movement over his flesh betrayed the unwelcome and highly resented presence, unseen but poignant, of a strayed mouse.” After reading the quote above, I as the reader was drawn into the

Edgar Allen Poe was one of the most influential and important writers of the nineteenth century. He was the first writer to try to make a living only writing. One of Poe’s most popular short stories, “The Black Cat”, is considered horror fiction or gothic fiction which Poe is known for in his books and short stories because it was a popular genre during his days. In Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”, Poe uses a horror fiction genre, a mentally deranged and evil narrator/character, and symbolism of death to make a thrilling story with tons of suspense, drama, and gruesome detail.

In the poems Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse” and “The Mouse’s Petition” by Anna Letitia Barbauld, many feelings and emotions about mice are brought forth. While both poems were written by different authors, many of the feelings they share towards mice are common. The analysis of the two poems will help to find the comparisons and differences in theme, political and social issues, diction, and tone. Examples from the poems will help to show the similarities and differences in the two.

The experiences we have in childhood do much to shape our adult identity. In her novel Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood chronicles the life of artist Elaine Risley, and through a series of flashbacks shows the reader how she became her adult self. The retrospective showing of Elaine's artwork provides a framework for the retrospective of her journey from child to adult. Because Atwood was creating a fictional character, she was free to incorporate some very dramatic events that impacted Elaine's thoughts and feelings. Most of us do not have as much drama in our lives I certainly did not and yet the people, circumstances and occurrences in our lives affect us profoundly. We create our identity by the friends we choose, the decisions we make, and the way we respond to things that happen around us. Some things happen to us, and we also make conscious choices.

Once upon a time there lived a lanky little rat named Rudy. Rudy’s fur was very dull and felt like needles. She lived in a tiny village where all the animals knew each other. Every afternoon she would meet with her friends at the riverbank to tell stories of their morning. One day Rudy scurried to the riverbank excited to share with her friends a cheesecake she had baked just for them, but when she arrived at the meeting spot, no one was there. Worried and confused, Rudy hurried in to town to look for her friends there. Just as she reached the main road, her body froze as she watched the most beautiful creature strolling through town. Rudy looked around and noticed she was not the only animal in the village mesmerized by this beautiful

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”

Stevens makes this fact apparent from the beginning of the poem, when he notes not only “human revery” but also “the sexual myth” and the “poem of death” (1). Therefore, these defined formulations are only categories of a greater whole, which remains unmentioned in the poem. In deliberating on Stevens’s poems, we can come to understand this encompassing whole as the imagination, which impels an individual to make “eccentric propositions” about his or her life and fate (4-5, 10).