Despereaux Tilling

Character Analysis

A Mouse Unlike Any Other

Despite what you might think, all mice are not the same. At least not in fiction, that is. Our fearless protagonist, Despereaux Tilling, is pretty different from everyone else in the mouse community. First of all, he's just physically different. He's not as big as his siblings, and seems like he'll blow away with the slightest breeze:

He said nothing in defense of himself. How could he? Everything his aunt and uncle said was true. He was ridiculously small. His ears were obscenely large. He had been born with his eyes open. And he was sickly. He coughed and sneezed so often that he carried a handkerchief in one paw at all times. He ran temperatures. He fainted at loud sounds. Most alarming of all, he showed no interest in the things a mouse should show interest in. (2.14)

But physical differences are just the beginning. Despereaux's terrible at mouse skills. He's not particularly interested finding food to eat. He loves music and beautiful things. He's terrible at learning how to scurry, and refuses to eat the pages of books because he likes to read the stories instead.

"You try," she said. "First a bite of glue and then follow it with a crunch of the paper. And these squiggles. These are very tasty."

Despereaux looked down at the book, and something remarkable happened. The marks on the pages, the "Squiggles," as Merlot referred to them, arranged themselves into shapes. The shapes arranged themselves into words and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time. (3.15-16)

Despereaux falls in love with the story about a princess and her knight. One day, following the sound of music in the castle, he comes across the king playing the guitar for his daughter Princess Pea. Letting yourself be seen by people is totally against mouse laws, but he doesn't even try to hide away. He lets the princess touch him on the head and talks to her (another interesting tidbit about Despereaux…he can talk to people). When the other mice hear this, they're completely outraged:

There was a bellow of collective outrage. The whole of the mouse community surged toward Despereaux. The mice seemed to become one angry body with hundreds of tails and thousands of whiskers and one huge, hungry mouth opening and closing and opening and closing saying over and over and over again, "To the dungeon. To the dungeon. To the dungeon." (10.59)

It seems like Despereaux's family and neighbors don't exactly appreciate his unique qualities.

The Noble Knight

For such an itty-bitty mouse, Despereaux tries to be extremely noble and brave. He's willing to do anything for Princess Pea. He models his behavior towards her on the knights that he reads about in books:

"I honor you!" shouted Despereaux.

"I honor you" was what the knight said to the fair maiden in the story that Despereaux read every day in the book at the library. Despereaux had muttered the phrase often to himself, but he had never before this evening had occasion to use it when speaking to someone else. (7.36-37)

But Despereaux doesn't just honor the princess through words. He's willing to brave terrible, scary things like dungeons and rats in order to keep her safe. When Roscuro and Mig kidnap Princess Pea, Despereaux charges back into the dungeons without a thought for his own safety, even though he's just escaped from that terrible place. It wasn't that he wasn't scared—he was plenty scared—but he knew what he had to do:

He was a two-ounce mouse in a dark, twisting dungeon full of rats. He had nothing but a sewing needle with which to defend himself. He had to find a princess. And he had to save her once he found her.

"It's impossible," he said to the darkness. "I can't do it."

He stood very still. "I'll go back," he said. But he didn't move. "I have to go back," He took a step backward. "But I can't go back. I don't have a choice. I have no choice." (42.2-4)

Full of Love and Forgiveness

On top of being a noble protector of the princess, Despereaux also has a lot of goodness in his heart for others—including those who have wronged him. He's hurt when his family turns their backs on him and lets him go off to his doom, but after he escapes from the dungeons, he forgives his father:

But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, "I forgive you, Pa."
And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself. (40.23-24)

Instead of holding a grudge until the end of time (which no one would have blamed him for doing), Despereaux tells his father that it's okay—he's not going to hold this against him. And then he moves on.

That's what we call being the bigger man (or mouse).