Mice in fiction

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Mice are popular in fiction, usually as anthropomorphic funny animals.

Although mice have been regarded by mankind as pests for ages, they are often featured sympathetically in books and cartoons.^[1] Sometimes, such as in Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, humans are the enemy and mice are the protagonists.

Slate movie reviewer Troy Patterson criticized the popularity of mice characters such as Mickey Mouse, saying: "literal pest has become the cuddliest critter in the world, and that, to paraphrase Walter Matthau, exemplifies the worst aspects of marketing that make America great."^[2]

1 Misconceptions
2 Mice in TV/Movies
3 Poetry
4 Allegory
5 Other fiction
6 References

[edit] Misconceptions

In fiction, mice are popularly portrayed as loving cheese, but in reality most mice do not particularly like cheese, and prefer foods in their natural diet. Too much cheese may cause digestive problems and strong-smelling excrement. Cheese probably became linked to mice because its strong smell and sticky texture make it a good bait for mousetraps. Another common stereotype is that elephants are afraid of mice. Many believed that this was false, until proved correct on Mythbusters ^[3]

[edit] Mice in TV/Movies

Mickey Mouse in particular is recognized throughout the whole world.

Jerry (of Tom and Jerry) is also extremely well known also his nephew Tuffy.

Itchy, from The Simpson's Itchy and Scratchy cartoon-in-a-cartoon, is also a mouse. The cartoon is a violent parody of the classic, 'Tom and Jerry'.

Speedy Gonzales is a cartoon mouse from the Looney Tunes. Speedy would often humiliate his adversary Sylvester the cat.

Pinky and The Brain are two cartoon mice who regularly attempt to take over the world

Gadget Hackwrench and Monterey Jack from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.

The Secret of NIMH is an animated adaptation of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

Basil, The Great Mouse Detective

DangerMouse had his own secret agent cartoon with his sidekick Penfold.

Stuart Little from the movie and the book.

Mighty Mouse is the murine Superman equivalent from the animated TV series.

The Biker Mice From Mars are from a race of humanoid Martian Cave Mice that star in the cartoon series of that name.

Fievel Mousekewitz is a cartoon Russian-Jewish mouse who appears in productions such as Fievel's American Tails and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West

Yuki from Fruits Basket turns into a mouse when hugged.

In Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, if a witch hunter says "you're a witch" to an actual witch, they turn into a mouse for 100 years.

Mr. Jingles is a tamed mouse kept by a person on death row in Stephen King's The Green Mile

[edit] Poetry

Robert Burns' famous poem "To a Mouse", written in 1785, gave us the immortal proverb "the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry". Burns, who owned a farm for a time, was inspired to write the poem after he had disturbed a field mouse's nest with his plow on a cold November day. The poem could be described as his "apology" to the mouse, and it expresses his apparent longing that man could once again be part of nature's "social union".

[edit] Allegory

There is also Franz Kafka's short story, "Josephine the Singer", an allegorical story about the role of the artist in society, where society is represented by a community of mice and the artist is a mouse named Josephine, with a gift of song.

The book Who Moved My Cheese? features mice adapting to change, specifically, running out of cheese. This book is occasionally given to employees facing layoffs.

The graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman tells the story of Spiegelman's parents during the holocaust, depicting the Jews as mice.

[edit] Other fiction

In Flowers for Algernon, Algernon is a laboratory mouse who has had his intelligence artificially increased.

The Lion and the Mouse is one of Aesop's fables, with the moral "Little friends may prove great friends".[1]

Mouse Guard is a series of comics by David Petersen wherein anthropomorphic mice, living in the 12th Century, protect their territory from various predators and plots.

Reepicheep is a bold, courageous mouse from The Chronicles of Narnia. He wields a rapier; his headstrong behavior lends irony to his being a mouse.

The Redwall series by Brian Jacques is a series about an abbey of anthropomorphic mice (along with other anthropomorphic creatures) confronted by various challenges to their abbey in each book.

The Three Blind Mice have minor roles in the movies Shrek and Shrek 2.

The Animorphs frequently morph into mice during the series' run.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, white mice are pan-dimensional beings who commissioned the construction of a giant computer, the Earth. See Races and Species in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

In the Deptford Mice series of novels, a group of mice from Deptford (A borough of London) and some of their relatives from the countryside, along with smaller groups of bats and squirrels, defeat the machinations of an ancient evil cat spirit named Jupiter and his army of rat allies.

In Dune (novel) by Frank Herbert, the name chosen by Paul Atredies is Muad'Dib from which one meaning refers to the Kangaroo mouse of Arrakis. The Fremen of Arrakis have great respect this animal because of its versatility, hardiness, and proliferation in their harsh desert environment.