Spencer Johnson uses a story within a story to attempt to catch the reader off-guard and ready for a teachable moment. In the context of a class reunion discussion, the friends begin to catch up and share what has happened in their lives over the years. Some have had success and others have had frustration in their lives. One Character had found the story of Who Moved My Cheese and credited that story as a rich source of help and guidance in navigating the changes of life. From the setting of revealed information, the author shares with the reader the story of Who Moved My Cheese. The story is written in a sort of Aesop’s fable context with two small people (Hem and Haw) and two mice (Sniff and Scurry). The obvious intent is for these …show more content…
Haw is victim to the same problems as Hem but is able to laugh (Haw!) at the situation and begin searching for more cheese. The two mice characters are two only for balance but essentially the same quality of using instinct and a blank slate every day to find that for which they are looking. Operating by the instinct is less productive at first because they are not using their memories to avoid the wrong turns and dead-ends. Sniff and Scurry are victims of their natures and re-invent the path to the cheese every day. The human characters are more successful at first because they find a path that works and keep using it until the cheese runs out. In that predicament, the mice simply continued with their previous natures and searched out another source of cheese. Hem and Haw remained convinced that they simply needed to return to where the cheese was and it would reappear. The two human characters are more distinct than the mice and they begin to diverge in the way they deal with their problem. Eventually the mice find another source of cheese and Haw joins them. The story leaves the reader unaware of the final status of Hem. Once the story is told, Johnson returns to the “real world” to unpack and explain the points of the story. The events are predictable and the lessons learned are not terribly profound. The value of the story is the suspension of reality. People understand that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is a definition of
I most identify with Hem and Haw, they are two little people. They are happy at first doing what comes naturally and eating what is in front of them. As time goes on the cheese begins to lessen and they eventually have no cheese, but they wait to see if more cheese will appear. When no cheese appears they eventually go out into the maze looking for more but are afraid to venture to far from the place the original cheese was. I feel I most identify wit Hem and Haw because they are afraid
Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson, is a parable that shows how individuals deal with change differently. In this story the four characters, two mice named Sniff and Scurry and two little people, about the size of mice, named Hem and Haw. These four are in a maze searching for cheese; the
John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men follows the journey of two men, George Milton and Lennie Small, who struggle through the navigation of working on a ranch in California and fulfilling their dreams together during a time of financial depression. The novel begins with George and Lennie traveling through the California wilderness to get to a new ranch just south of Soledad where they are going to begin new work. They had to leave their previous jobs in a town called Weed because Lennie had caused trouble with a girl by holding on to her red dress because he wanted to feel it, and this incident spiraled into rape allegations against Lennie. As George and Lennie make their way to the new ranch, Lennie; who is a large, but simple minded man; found a dead mouse and wanted to keep it to pet because he likes soft things. George, who is more serious and protects Lennie, takes the mouse away from him because even though it’s dead, he should not be messing with it. Lennie often does not realize his strength because of his mental incapabilities and as a result, he causes a lot of trouble and harm. George finds taking care of Lennie to be taxing, but he knows that their friendship is an important bond that he does not want to be without. In order to comfort Lennie in the wilderness, George tells the story of their shared dream to own their own ranch where they can follow their own rules and live as they please. When they finally arrive at the ranch the next day, George and Lennie
In the book I Moved Your Cheese, by Deepak Malhotra, Malhotra introduces us to three main characters, Zed, Max and Big. Zed, Max and Big are three mice that live among other mice in a maze. The daily routine of these mice consist of searching the maze for new ways to find new cheese. However, Zed, Max and Big are all free thinkers. They want to understand why the maze exists, why the cheese is constantly moving and most importantly who keeps moving their cheese. The unanimous answer on how to solve these mysteries is to get out of the maze so that they can see what answers they can find beyond the walls of the maze. In order for this to happen Zed, Max and Big had to identify their own individual strengths. Max was excitable. Max wanted to
The storyteller is able to keep his or her memories fresh and alive through the act of telling stories. At the age of forty-three, Tim O’Brien is still able to remember his childhood friend, Linda, who died when he was nine. “Even now I can see her walking down the aisle of the old State Theater in Worthington, Minnesota. I can see her face in profile beside me, the cheeks softly lighted by coming attractions.” Linda is given the gift of life through death by the power of the story. She not only lives in the mind of Tim O’Brien, but now Linda can live in the mind of anyone of whom he tells the story to. O’Brien’s audience is even graced with the pleasure of imagining what Linda looked like, “There were little crinkles at her eyes, her lips open and gently curving at the corners.” The audience can nearly see Linda, nine years old, standing in a childlike manner before
Who Moved My Cheese is about how to make changes in your life and work. The story has four characters Hem and Haw, who are human. And Sniff and Scurry, who are mice. They are metaphors for different parts of your life. They all have a task in hand, to find cheese. “Cheese” is a person’s life goals. In the maze, or a person’s environment is where they need to seek cheese.
This clever story is crafted down to the smallest detail - every word and expression implies something, often has a second meaning and so manipulates the reader's opinion. The factor that makes this story even more
“If You Give A Mouse A Cookie,” was written by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond in the year 1985. The book is about a mouse that tells the little boy in the story that he wants milk then a straw, then a cookie, and it continues till the mouse wants the milk again. During the duration of the book the mouse never seems to be fully satisfy and always wanting more or other things to do while telling the boy to get it for him. When I was younger I remember wanting a cookie after reading this story and believed the meaning of the story was to get a cookie and a glass of milk with a straw when you are hungry. As I got older and reread the story all over again I realized I had a different interpretation of the book than I had when I
In John Steinbeck’s novela, Of Mice and Men, a story of two men chasing a dream is being told. The men, George and Lennie, have a goal of buying a house with land to raise rabbits on, but they are disrupted by Lennie’s mental illness. Lennie makes simple-minded decisions that never turn out well, much like the incident in “To a mouse.”
Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson, is a parable that shows how individuals deal with change differently. In this story the four characters, two mice named Sniff and Scurry and two little people, about the size of mice, named Hem and Haw. These four are in a maze searching for cheese;
The book “Who Moved My Cheese?” is a simple story about mice and “little people” that helps readers handle and deal with changes in their lives. The story is about two mice and two human-like individuals named “little people” (who are the size of the mice). The two mice’s names are Scurry and Sniff. The two little people’s names are Hem and Haw. The story takes place in a “maze” and the characters look for “cheese” to nourish them in the maze. When the characters find cheese, only to have it disappear, they experience change. The different characters show different ways of responding to this change and teach lessons that can be applied to our daily lives.
The short 100-page novel “Who Moved my Cheese” by Spencer Johnson, M.D., is a very short but powerful novel especially for ones reading this in the business world. Though this story is short and has illustrated pictures almost like a children’s book, it’s what in the text is what gives this story a short but powerful meaning. As you begin the story, you are introduced to the main characters in the beginning of the text. The main characters are two mice named Scurry and Sniff and two “Little People” Hem and Haw. These characters depicted in the story are intended to represent the simple and complex parts of ourselves in life. In the story Sniff is a character who “sniffs out change early” (Johnson, Pg. 12, 1998). Scurry is a character who “scurries into action” (Johnson, Pg. 12, 1998).. Hem is a character who “refuses and denies change no matter what because he fears it will lead to something worse” (Johnson, Pg. 12, 1998). Then the last character Haw is a character who “learns to adapt in time when he sees change because it will lead to something better” (Johnson, Pg. 12, 1998). This list of characters in this story really portrays the characteristics of either successful or unsuccessful traits needed in order to excel in the business world.
Who Moved My Cheese is a well-articulated business fable about how to deal with change in organizations, personal life, and in various situations involving changing paradigms. There are four characters identified in the fable and are described in the below figure. It’s important to note that both Sniff and Scurry are mice in the story and Hem and Haw represent two little people.
Here cheese is used to represent the amenities that life gives us and we generally crave for in our lifetime. For the mice, i.e. Sniff and Scurry, it is just another day when they get on their running shoes and roam around in the “Maze”. The “Maze” here refers to the different ways or apths that we come across in life. The Little People, Hem and Haw on the other hand, use their complex brains to search for the Cheese that they are looking for. The mice follow the hit and trial method in which they go looking for cheese from one path to another, and if they do not find any at that specific path, they just move on to other paths. As this is going on, as mentioned earlier, the little people come up with big ideas for their searches and although they too get to the same results as the mice, they hit the target pretty
All four characters spend their time doing the same thing, looking for cheese. They begin each morning with the desire to get the cheese and end the evening with their bellies full of cheese. Sniff and scurry are prepared each day and stay on top of training. Hem and Haw start out ok but they are not as ambitious as the mice. They seem to take for granted that their cheese will always be at Station C. By doing the same thing each morning getting up, putting on their shoes, working their way through the maze, the little people start to become complacent and lazy.