Student Question
Which sections in The Tale of Despereaux describe light and darkness?
Quick answer:
One section that deals describes light is when Despereaux's sister shows him the castle library. There is a “bright yellow” light in the library. The light seems to link to reading and thinking. Meanwhile, the sections that deal with darkness seem connected to the mice world. If you look at the dungeon section, you’ll find Despereaux surrounded by terrible darkness.
One section that deals with light occurs in chapter 3. Remember, in this chapter, Despereaux’s siblings are trying to teach him how to act like a proper mouse. Despereaux isn’t paying much attention to them. He seems preoccupied by the light.
The light has a central influence on Despereaux. It seems to represent a way of life that deviates from the mouse way of life. It represents thought and education. If you look over chapter 3, you might come across a description of the castle library where “light came streaming in through tall, high windows and landed on the floor in bright yellow patches.”
The following chapter continues to talk about light. In chapter 4, Despereaux hears music. The music makes his soul to “grow large and light inside him.” Once again, light seems to be linked to the arts and culture of humans.
As for darkness, many sections when...
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darkness appears in relation to the world of the mice. If the world of humans is light, it seems like the world of mice is dark. When Despereaux is sentenced to the dungeon, he encounters “darkness so awful” and “so all-encompassing.”
Of course, before Despereaux is sentenced to the dungeon, he has to stand trial. In the trial section, there is a description of the Head Mouse’s eyes as “dark.” Once again, darkness seems to be closely attached to the mouse world. Perhaps that’s why Despereaux is intent on finding another world, a world of light.
What sections in The Tale of Despereaux describe darkness?
In The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo dramatically pictures darkness several times. When Despereaux is brought before the Mouse Council to answer charges of associating with the humans, he looks into the “dark eyes” of the Head Mouse and is frightened, because he knows that the owner of those dark eyes might decree dark days for him. Indeed, Despereaux is sentenced to banishment in the dungeon. When the mice throw him down into the darkness, Despereaux tumbles over and over until he gets to the bottom of the stairs.
The poor little mouse is surrounded by an “all-encompassing” darkness that actually seems to have “a physical presence as if it were a being all its own.” He cannot even see his paw in front of his face. In fact, it is so dark that Despereaux doubts his own existence for a moment, and he grabs his tail to make sure he is still in one piece. Then he begins to tell himself a story to build up his courage. He speaks out to the darkness as if it can hear him, and when a voice answers back, poor Despereaux faints.
The voice, however, is not darkness in person, but rather the jailer Gregory, who lights a match for a moment, lifting the darkness. Gregory tells Despereaux that the dungeon is “the treacherous dark heart of the world.” Its physical darkness symbolizes the darkness in people’s, and rats’, minds and hearts. Gregory asks Despereaux for a story, for “Stories are light,” and “Light is precious in a world so dark.” Despereaux begins his tale and spreads the light of imagination and enjoyment in the darkest of dungeons.
The story also discusses darkness and light when it tells of the rat Roscuro and the serving girl Miggery Sow. Gregory had once shone the light of a match before Roscuro’s eyes, and from that point on, the rat was ever drawn toward light as the meaning of life. Yet he seems destined to lie in the darkness of the dungeon. For Miggery Sow, the world is also a dark place. She is horribly abused by her uncle and longs to be a princess, “so glittery lightlike, there wouldn’t be a place in the world that was dark to me.”
In Despereaux’s dream, a glorious knight fights the dark, and the dark takes on shapes likes his mother and father and a huge rat. But the knight turns out to be nothing at all, and Despereuax cries in his sleep, frightened that there is no “happily ever after” for him.
Finally, the story speaks of the Princess’s heart, which is “complicated, shaded with dark and dappled with light.” The Princess had a deep, dark hatred and sadness in her heart because her mother had died. The Princess ends up in the dark dungeon until Despereaux comes to the rescue.