Elizabeth Bishop: Child of past, child of present in "The Country Mouse"

In "The Country Mouse," Bishop's child persona recalls her past, not just as literary discourse, but: in order to feel the expansion of self. Though some of her experiences are reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, she uses metaphorical language rather than fantasy to bring psychological dimensions of her childhood memories of an epiphany into a narrative. In this work, Bishop produces an aesthetic rendering of her autobiography, and she finds her unified self in the exploration of past memories.