This children’s fantasy by Robert C. O'Brien about mice and rats has gone and won the 1972 Newbery Medal, meaning like all other books with this prize, it is bound to be a showstopper in story and theme. It talks about a widow named Mrs Frisby taking care of her four children, one of which falls sick. However, there isn’t time to let him heal, as farmer Fitzgibbon is going to plough the land, destroying their home while doing so. But her son Timothy can’t go out because of the risk of reinfection. So, she seeks aid and through a series of events, leads her to asking help from a band of mysterious rats. Turns out, these rats were experimented in a laboratory named NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) before escaping, giving them the ability to learn quickly and gain extreme intelligence, as well as never-aging. They have built a civilization full of electricity and education. However, these rats of NIMH are carrying out a plan to move and grow their own food, becoming self-dependent and not having to steal like normal rats do, a wish they dreamt of since they were educated. The story ends with the rats successfully moving Mrs Frisby’s home out of danger and leaves the reader hanging with whether the rats will successfully build a different future. This story is full of connections between human and rodent, making the story seem like a human story just changed characters Yet at the same time it teaches us on how humans mistreat and experiment on animals uncaringly and unsympathetically.
This book tells the story with characters that are animals, although the plot is just as well fit for a story centering around human characters. This book tells the story as if the animals were human, and the plot proves this point. A mother in a single-parent family needs to take care of her son who is sick, and needs to face challenges and hardships during this process. She needs to solve the family’s problems and relocate their home. The aim of the author is to represent human life through Fantasy and animal characters. By doing so, he/she is able to weave in real-life challenges and how to solve these challenges, as well as morals and lessons that can be used in the real world. As aforementioned, Mrs Frisby needs to take care of her children, especially Timothy, who is sick. She needs to find a way to give Timothy time to heal and not get destroyed by farmer Fitzgibbon at the same time. She has to take action and find ways to solve both problems. These situations can just as well be real in the actual world, with simply different details. A human mother could have to take care of her children while facing other issues and life problems. This realistic plot also reveals themes about family, as it is about a mother trying to take care of her beloved children. By creating a storyline that can relate to human life, the author is able to reveal morals and lessons in real life as well as problems and how to solve them.
All the animals in this story have the virtue of friendship, meaning they help each other in times of need. These characters help each other to overcome their difficulties and challenges, creating an interconnected link between the animals. If one looks closely, everyone is helping everyone else, every single animal is united by friendship and cooperation. This allows the characters to help solve each other’s problems and achieve greater things together, such as escaping a lab or solving a family crisis. The examples in the book are endless. To list a few, the rats of NIMH helped Mrs Frisby move her house. In return, Mrs Frisby warned them about an impending extermination organized by humans to kill the rats. Mrs Frisby helped free Jeremy the crow and save his life, who then helped Mrs Frisby seek aid for her own problems. Mr Ages helped heal Mrs Frisby’s sick son, and Mrs Frisby helped him to drug Dragon for operation on Mrs Frisby’s house. Jonathan (Mrs Frisby’s former husband who was also experimented in the lab), The Owl, Nicodemus, Mr Ages, and all the other rats cooperated and worked with each other to first escape NIMH, then build a civilization and start The Plan to achieve a better future. As seen here, mice, rats and birds helped each other with their problems, creating a friendly connection that solved problems from all sides. This sort of correlation is what we should aim for in real-life, with everyone helping everyone else instead of turmoil. Because in the end, there would be prosperity to everyone and happiness. As shown in the story, the virtue of friendship helps solve problems from all sides and create a better life for everyone.
Contrasting from the friendship of animals in the story is the cruelty of humans in regard to animal testing and experimentation. There are two main points to this conversation that make animal experimentation cruel. When humans test animals, they often do not consider the fact that animals can feel pain too. Animals can be severely injured or even killed in the process of testing, and yet humans conducting these experiments do not care. This is the first point that makes animal experimentation especially cruel. Testers often don’t have sympathy for the animals that they are testing on. Even if the animal dies, the experimenter just moves on to testing another animal, ignoring the fact that a life is still a life, and destroying one without remorse is simply wrong. The second point is that all efforts of animal experimentation are ultimately for money. New recipes or formulas will be created and sold, and the ones who made it will profit. This takes animal cruelty to another level, sacrificing lives for financial benefit because one thinks those lives are insignificant. In the story, the people at NIMH did experiments studying how a certain injection can make animals smarter, disregarding the wellbeing of those animals. They only cared about the effects and success of the injections, not the animals. Even if they did take care of them, it was only because the animals were needed for testing, and there was a limited amount. As shown in the story, the scientists tested animals only to see if the injections worked and if it would help make profit, not caring whether the rats lived or died, only keeping them alive for more experiments. When testing animals, humans often don’t care about the well-being of those animals, only to make money.
In conclusion, Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH has been a wonder to read and analyze, and it deserves its Newbery Medal. A simple yet complex story of a mouse trying to solve her family problems and finds a much deeper lore about the rats neighboring her in beside the farmer’s barn. This story’s plot and storyline is much fit for a story with human characters, but the author chooses instead to use animals, rats and mice and birds. By doing so, this Fantasy story can reveal morals and lessons about real-life, as well as challenges and how to overcome them. In this story, the virtue of friendship is much emphasized. It shows how all the animal characters work with each other and help each other to solve each other’s issues. This creates a cooperative and friendly connection between the animals, allowing for more prosperity and progression because everyone is helping everyone else. This kindness is contrasted by the cruelty of humans in the story. While conducting experiments on animals, people often don’t care and ignore the fact that animals can also feel pain and die. These people don’t have sympathy for animals and don’t care if they die, overlooking the fact that a life is still a life, and taking one away is still cruel, even if animals aren’t as intelligent as us. This book truly shows a lot about real-life and lessons we should be using in the real world, and I highly recommend this book.
Comments