Stuart's Mousiness
Stuart Little is a book filled with a wonderfully humorous, gentle sort of irony. It is a serious book, much more serious than the film adaptation would suggest, but the ironic tone is not one of corrosive satire. The ironic tone of the text is set immediately in the very first paragraph when the narrator describes how Stuart first begins to act like the mouse he resembles physically: “Before he was many days old he was not only looking like a mouse but acting like one, too—wearing a gray hat and carrying a small cane" (2). This description is ironic because mice do not, in reality, wear clothes or carry canes. Stuart's mousiness is therefore remarkably human in nature.
The Ending
Throughout the adventures, the author ironically subverts many expectations and conventions of “children’s literature.” Coming from the author Charlotte’s Web, a book that, even today, helps define those very conventions, this subversion seems all the more rebellious and ironic. The most unexpected ironic subversion in Stuart Little is the ending: far from the "happily ever after" conclusion of most children's literature, this book leaves readers with a the image of Stuart heading off into the north: “The sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction" (131). Meanwhile, he is still on his quest to find Margalo, Snowbell is still at large, and Stuart’s romance with Harriet is prematurely terminated amid a disastrous first encounter.
George
Worth noting is that the comically endearing quality of George, Stuart's human brother, is most derived from a sense of irony. A good example is George’s reaction when Snowbell tricks the family into thinking Stuart has disappeared into the mouse hole. George almost immediately leaps to the conclusion that he is dead and starts furiously pulling down the shades in order to darken the house as a gesture of respect and mourning, symbolically burying Stuart. Ironically, George succeeds in unwittingly “resurrecting” Stuart when he pulls down the shade into which Stuart had earlier bounced.
The Boat Race
The action scene of the book is Stuart’s sailboat race. It is a thrilling adventure, written with great vigor and energy that situates Stuart as a character whose wits are disproportionate to his size. Small he may be in stature, but momentous is courage, ambition, and intellect. In many ways, it is the highlight of Stuart’s adventures and one that showcases his strength and agency in his own life. As such, One would think he would return home ready to relive the excitement of the race by dramatically re-enacting it for his family. Instead, his reply to George’s inquiry of what he did all day is markedly ironic in its understatement: “Oh, knocking around town" (46).
