Ideas, attitudes and feelings

In this nursery rhyme it is three blind mice running after a farmers wife who cuts off their tails with a carving knife. The attitude is that the farmers wife is harsh and was cruel towards the mice. You get the feeling that the mice did not deserve their tails to be cut of by a carving knife.

Language, form and structure

This rhyme is repetitive which makes it easily remeberable, there are lots of 'i' sounds. There is a rhmyping triplet three lines in a row making it catchy.

Context

The origin of the words to the Three blind mice rhyme are based in English history. The 'farmer's wife' refers to the daughter of King Henry VIII, Queen Mary I. Mary was a staunch Catholic and her violent persecution of Protestants led to the nickname of 'Bloody Mary'. The reference to 'farmer's wife' in Three blind mice refers to the massive estates which she, and her husband King Philip of Spain, possessed.

The 'three blind mice' were three noblemen who adhered to the Protestant faith who were convicted of plotting against the Queen - she did not have them dismembered and blinded as inferred in Three blind mice - but she did have them burnt at the stake.