Robert Burns's To A Louse

The understanding goes to the mouse but the hatred goes to the louse Robert Burns’s poems “To a Mouse” and “To a louse” are about a farmer who talks to a mouse and a man watching a louse in a woman’s hair. By looking at the names of the poems one would assume they might share a theme, a plot, or a style, however these poems share a contrast. In “To a Mouse” the farmer speaks to the Mouse as if they are equals. The farmer even praises the mouse for living such a simple life. However in “To a Louse” the man sitting behind the woman in church talks of the louse with pure disgust. The man expands upon how he could see the louse on some poor person or a homeless man, but not on someone wearing the “fine[st] Lunardi” (“To a Louse” l 35). In the poems “To a Mouse” and “To a Louse” the farmer and the mouse are viewed as equals while the lady and the louse are viewed as not equal by any stretch of the imagination. In “To a Mouse” a

The poem is narrated by a man behind the woman, who talks of how disgusting the louse is and how it should not be anywhere near a woman as fine as the one in front of him. Burns describes the woman as being in the finest dress for church with her Lunardi bonnet, “gauze and lace” (“To a Louse” l 4). Meanwhile the man observing the louse makes numerous statements about how awful and dirty the louse is: “Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,/ Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner,/ How daur ye set your fit upon her” (“To a Louse” 7). The man berates the louse for being a filthy, low-life bug; basically calling out a lousy louse. After the man gives the louse his 2 cents he begins to tell the louse where he should be: “Swith! in some beggar’s hauffet squattle:/ There you may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle” (“To a Louse” ll 13). The man tells the louse that he should be in some beggar’s hovel, where it can creep and sprawl in the filth where it