Being Accomplished Poem Analysis

Within the poem Being Accomplished, Pattiann Rogers defamiliarizes the mouse as a pest and brings her into a positive light by illustrating her as a hardworking, caring mother who struggles against the unknown infinity of the outside world. She accomplishes the feeling of intense emotion and awe towards this mother mouse through the use of language by applying different types of linguistic references, relationships and word choice. Using cataphoric reference in the first line of the poem, “Balancing on her haunches, the mouse can accomplish,” Rogers delays the identity of the mouse until later, surprising the audience that the mouse can be capable of “being accomplished” as the title suggests. At first glance in real life, a mouse hardly seems to be “accomplished” much less capable of being anything other than a pest that multiplies and destroys human food supplies. However,

The mouse is viewed as small and insignificant, and maybe a pest, but unfortunately, that is how the world sometimes see human women. They may seem delicate and fragile, but women fight and shield their loved ones against the injustice and horrors of the world just as the mouse faces the vast infinity of night in the middle of winter as she holds her hawthorn branch. A thing so pure against such vast cruelty illustrates her strength as well has her dexterity and beauty, much like bringing to attention the injustices that human women face every