Sipsworth

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.

Sipsworth symbolizes Helen’s dead family members and eventually begins to take their place in her life. Even before Helen declares that she and the mouse share their last name, she sees in his eyes “something she has seen before, in the faces of those who now haunt her” (72). She believes he looks at her with love. The mouse is at various times compared to her dead son David, to her husband Len, and to her parents.

Like David, Sipsworth is gentle, and Helen thinks there is “great power” in gentleness. She loved to stroke her son’s hair, and she loves to pet Sipsworth’s fur. Sipsworth is also, like David and her father, a teacher of sorts—he teaches Helen that she has the capacity to love and be loved.

The mouse also reminds Helen of her parents in the way he goes about his business with “quiet cheerfulness.” The novel stresses this parallel as Helen tells the mouse that he is “definitely a Cartwright” (100), and when she tells Dr. Jamal that the mouse’s name is “Sipsworth Cartwright.”

Finally, the mouse also reminds her of Len. When Sipsworth wants to go to bed before the opera they are listening to is over, she says, “Just like Len.