Book Report: If You Give Mouse a Cookie

Note: This piece is part of a larger work called Bad Book Reports, and it's intended for a section devoted to the pseudo-intellectualization of entertainment culture. The goal is to demonstrate that a piece doesn't need to possess actual depth or a wealth of intended symbolism to be subject to the kind of analysis that populate undergraduate classrooms and academia. The ability to offer a complex analysis does not make the work in question necessarily "deep" or a wellspring of esoteric wisdom.

If you give a Mouse a Cookie: A Meditation on the Nature of Greed and the Folly of Appeasement

         The book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff is an allegorical exploration of the interrelated themes of greed and appeasement. The book begins with a nameless young, white male protagonist perched on a rock littering the well-manicured yard of a suburban home. A mouse approaches, and the young male offers this interloper a cookie. This initial act of altruism instigates a series of increasingly arduous demands on the part of the Mouse. Mouse, fat with cookie, demands milk, then a straw, followed by access to a mirror, and so on. As each of Mouse’s demands are met Mouse, unsatisfied, merely moves on to the next request. The narrative climaxes when Mouse demands supplies to draw a picture. The Boy complies, yet the Mouse remains unsatisfied. Mouse demands that he be allowed to hang his picture on the refrigerator, forcing the Boy to locate scotch tape. Upon using the tape to hang the picture on the refrigerator, Mouse stands back to admire his handiwork. Gazing triumphantly at the drawing, Mouse realizes that he is thirsty. He asks for milk. As the boy complies, sinking into a chair in utter exhaustion, the author implies that milk will be followed by a request for a cookie, thus beginning the cycle of escalation and appeasement anew.
         The narrative clearly explores the nature of greed, a concept embodied by the character Mouse. Mouse’s every whim is granted by the Boy, but rather than finding pleasure in the realization of his desires, Mouse finds only that he has new wants. Like Tantalus in Greek mythology, satisfaction for Mouse lingers forever out of reach. This clearly is Numeroff’s indictment of our contemporary consumer culture, a culture that glorifies boundless human greed. Mouse represents the mindless consumption the characterizes the American way of life, but also the capitalist engine that drives the consumption machine by inculcating the frivolous desires that inhabit the hearts and minds of the American citizen-consumer. Greed is good, has become the unspoken mantra of America, and Numeroff demonstrates the inevitable conclusion of this mantra, a vacuous and empty existence devoid of any real satisfaction.
         If Mouse symbolizes the futility of greed, then the Boy embodies the mindless desire to appease the demands of an increasingly entitled, narcissistic populace. The Boy never pauses to consider the implications of Mouse’s frivolous requests, nor their merit, he seeks only to appease Mouse believing that, by meeting Mouse’s demands, Mouse will be satisfied. Yet the Boy fails to realize that Mouse cannot be satisfied. Humans, and fictional mice, have a boundless capacity for want. The Boy’s lack of reflection traps him in a cycle of pointless, futile actions, which satisfy neither the Boy nor the Mouse.
         It is worth noting Numeroff’s skill at utilizing symbolism to enrich her narrative. The capacity for greed is personified by a mouse and this choice is revealing; the ascension of the mouse as a plague to human civilization coincides with dawn of agriculture, surplus and the rise of city life. Mice and rodents became credible threats to human populations when human cultures developed the ability to store food, thus providing mice an opportunity to despoil humanity’s hard-won surplus. Agriculture gave rise to surplus, which in turn fed greed and the desire for even more, which metamorphosed into the scourge of a settled, human life. Mouse is a symbol of the greed produced by surplus and comfort. Conversely, the Boy represents middle-class America, always seeking to appease its own needs through consumerism. These potent symbols are trapped together in a relationship that is best described as symbiotic futility. Together, they tell an insightful story of the American way of life.