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Symbols in Cat and Mouse Essay examples

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Symbols in Cat and Mouse



Symbols are very important in the story "Cat and Mouse" by Lisa Metzgar. Lisa tells the story of a woman dealing with issues from a small mouse in her house, to not wanting to be married. Animals are used throughout the story to symbolize underlying issues. The reason for the story being called what it is instead of just plain 'mouse' is because both the cat and the mouse represent Marcy at one point. The mouse is a symbol of her in that it is trying to escape the traps that are out for it. This is the same way that she is trying to avoid being tied down by the people in her life. The cat can also represent Marcy after it has taken the poison, symbolizing what will happen to her if she allows …show more content…

She puts out mousetraps with peanut butter in order for the mouse to be enticed enough to fall for the trap. This is the same way that her father is trying to make her chose his side and have Thanksgiving dinner at his new lady's house, using her as the bait. The depressing way that the cat goes around the house, even though its purpose is to catch the mouse can symbolize the way that her mother seems to be feeling. It also seems to be the way that her mother wants Marcy to feel too. When she finds out that Marcy was going to have dinner at both her mother and fathers house, "she thinks her mother is laughing, then she realizes that the sound are a king of crying, a high, hysterical sound" (Metzgar, 75). And the mouse pellets that Marcy lines up along the cabinets can symbolize the different places Tom tries to take her in order to propose. Though the pellets should seem tempting to the mouse, "some mornings [they] have been pushed away from the wall, dismissed" (Metzgar, 67). This is the same way that Marcy seems to brush Tom's invitations to exotic places. She knows that she does like Tom, but marrying him makes her confused: "she cannot separate marrying Tom from the silence in her mother's house...form the cat hairs she found in her toothbrush this morning" (Metzgar, 76). In all of these ways Marcy and the mouse are alike. What she does not realize is that the mouse is annoying her because it is trying to tell her that it needs to be free,

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