49 pages • 1 hour read
E. B. WhiteStuart Little
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1945A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “In the Drain”
Frederick and Eleanor Little are somewhat surprised at the birth of their second son to find that he is hardly bigger than a mouse. In fact, he looks quite a bit like a mouse with whiskers, a tail, and a pleasant mousy manner. In only a few days, he even acts like a mouse, wearing a tiny hat and carrying a walking stick. The Littles name him Stuart.
Mrs. Little weighs Stuart daily on a postal scale, and when Stuart is a month old, his parents send for a doctor to see why he has gained only a third of an ounce. The doctor is unconcerned to find a mouse in the family and assures Stuart’s parents that he is perfectly well.
Stuart is a lively, helpful boy. He doesn’t mind doing those jobs for which only someone his size is particularly suited. One day, Mrs. Little loses a ring down the bathtub drain. Stuart’s older brother George suggests that she try fishing the ring out of the drain with a pin on a string, but she is unable to catch hold of it.
Mr. Little suggests sending Stuart down the drain, and Stuart is willing to have a try. He slides easily into the drain and finds the ring, and his father pulls him back up by a string. His mother kisses him, though he is slimy and smelly, and his father, who is always curious about new places, asks what it was like down the drain. Stuart replies, “It was all right” (6).
Chapter 2 Summary: “Home Problems”
Stuart’s family finds ways for him to participate in their activities despite his size. He may be too small to play ping-pong, but he is just the right size to retrieve lost balls from under the sofa. He can’t play the piano, but he can climb inside and lift the one sticky piano key so that George and their parents can play. This is one of George’s few ideas that actually works.
All the same, Stuart does present some challenges to the family. Mr. Little feels they should not talk about mice. They ban the Three Blind Mice song from the nursery and change the wording of The Night Before Christmas to read, “not even a louse” (10).
The family particularly worries about the mousehole in the pantry. They fear that due to his mouselike qualities, Stuart might someday feel inclined to explore it.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Washing Up”
Chapter 3 shows how the mouse-sized Stuart gets around in a human-sized world. Stuart likes to get out of bed before everyone else. He touches his toes 10 times. According to his brother George, this is a “fine abdominal thing to do.” (13) He goes down the hall to the bathroom to wash up, and he turns on the bathroom light by taking hold of a string tied to the switch and throwing his whole weight on it.
He then climbs a rope ladder to the washbasin (George had proposed building Stuart a washbasin his own size, but George has a short attention span and rarely finishes a project). Stuart can’t push the handle to turn the water faucet on because it is too heavy, and he has nothing to brace his feet against. George had started to build a brace for Stuart, but he forgot to finish it. Instead, Stuart’s father gave him a wooden mallet, which—by swinging it around his head and smashing it down on the faucet—Stuart can use to get a thin stream of water, enough to brush his teeth and wash his face.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Exercise”
Snowbell, the family cat, doesn’t like Stuart. One morning when Stuart is three years old, he comes down after washing up. Snowbell notes that Stuart is up early. Stuart says that he has come down to get a bit of morning exercise. Snowbell says Stuart must get enough exercise just trying to brush his teeth. Stuart, who is rather proud of his physique, boasts that he is in better condition than Snowbell. To prove it, he jumps onto the ring hanging from the window shade, meaning to swing on it like a trapeze. Instead, he pulls so hard that the shade snaps up, rolling Stuart inside. Stuart is squeezed so tightly he can’t raise his voice to call for help.
Snowbell laughs at Stuart’s predicament. Looking around to be sure he’s not being observed, the cat takes Stuart’s hat and walking stick from the windowsill and carries them to the pantry, where he drops them in front of the mousehole. When Mrs. Little comes downstairs, she sees the hat and cane lying there and lets out a shriek, believing that Stuart has gone down the mousehole.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Rescued”
George proposes tearing up the pantry floor, but the project is vetoed by Mr. Little, at least until they have searched everywhere else. Mrs. Little is distraught at the thought of Stuart getting stuck somewhere, but Mr. Little tells her not to get worked up; Stuart is perfectly capable of exploring on his own. Getting to their knees, they call Stuart’s name into the mousehole.
After some fruitless searching, Mrs. Little breaks down crying, certain that Stuart must be dead. George goes to pull down all the shades out of respect for the dead. He finally pulls down the shade in which Stuart has been trapped. When his relieved family asks how he came to be rolled up in the shade, Stuart replies that it was a simple accident, and he has no idea how his hat and cane came to be lying by the mousehole.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
The story opens in a tone of playful irony, treating the birth of a mouse boy as if it were nothing very remarkable. Even the doctor seems to think nothing of it, remarking only that it is “very unusual for an American family to have a mouse” as if such a thing might be perfectly unexceptional in, say, France (2). The first sentence of the book once read “When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son was born,” but because this implies that Mrs. Little gave birth to a mouse-sized child, “born” was changed to “arrived,” allowing readers to imagine that Stuart was adopted (Gutoskey, Ellen. “9 Charming Facts About E. B. White’s Stuart Little.” Mental Floss, 2020).
Stuart is an example of anthropomorphism, which is defined as the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures, such as animals. White humorously claims Stuart is very much like a mouse—in that he wears clothes and carries a cane, which are, of course, very human things. The fantastical circumstance of a mouselike child and his human parents is combined with prosaic elements, such as the fact that his mother weighs him (on a postal scale), or the way he integrates into the family just like any other child. Thus, the first line signals to the reader that they should not take the story too seriously, or too lightly—just seriously enough.
These early chapters primarily explore the themes of Being Small in a Large World and Embracing the Differences of Others. Chapter 2 shows the lengths to which the family goes to accommodate Stuart’s unusual requirements. They find ways for Stuart to participate in family activities and go out of their way to avoid references to mice to protect Stuart’s feelings, even though Stuart is not technically a mouse. Mr. Little doesn’t want Stuart worrying about farmers’ wives cutting off his tail, and he fears that the mouse’s preference in The Night Before Christmas might seem belittling to Stuart.
The author himself strongly opposed that kind of censorship. He felt that children had a good deal more literary fortitude than their elders gave them credit for. Children hear plenty of fairytales about hungry wolves, witches, and giants, and The Night Before Christmas could have been a rare opportunity for Stuart to see himself represented. The mouse, although small, is worthy of notice, and Stuart often finds himself overlooked.
The family’s concern over the mousehole is another example of the story’s ambiguity as to whether Stuart is a boy or a mouse. They fear that Stuart’s size and general mousiness might make the mousehole irresistibly attractive. At the same time, as mentioned in the bathtub drain incident, Mr. Little yearns for adventure; he likes the idea of exploring unusual places, and Stuart has the freedom to have the kind of adventures that Mr. Little can only dream of. This illustrates the theme of The Balance Between Youth and Maturity.
Chapter 3 is devoted to showing how the mouse-sized Stuart manages to get along in a human-sized world. What stands out is that Stuart is self-reliant. His brother George is prone to all sorts of extravagant ideas for adapting the world to fit Stuart, like building a brace for Stuart to push against when he wants to turn on the water at the sink, but George has a short attention span and rarely, if ever, finishes his projects. Stuart can’t count on other people to change to accommodate him. Instead, his father gives him a mallet with which to open the tap. His father’s solution gives Stuart greater freedom and independence by allowing him to do the job himself rather than waiting for someone else to change the world, even the small world of the family bathroom, to accommodate him.
Chapters 4 and 5 introduce the only antagonist in the book: Snowbell, the family cat. Through conflict and negative action, Snowbell impacts protagonist Stuart’s life. Snowbell is the Little family’s largest weak point when it comes to watching out for Stuart. The Littles do not see the danger of keeping a pet cat alongside their mouselike son; in fact, as evidenced in later chapters, they believe that Snowbell is harmless. In truth, Snowbell dislikes Stuart, actively wishes to hunt him, and purposely causes harm. He taunts Stuart for being small and weak, goading Stuart into trying to prove his strength. This results in Stuart getting rolled up in the window blind and having to be rescued. This is one of Stuart’s rare failures in life, and it results from being motivated by someone else’s opinion.
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