The Moustache By Robert Cormier Analysis

“Doing The Right Thing”

In the story, “The Moustache,” by Robert Cormier, a boy named Mike had a moustache. Although many did not approve nor like the moustache he really liked and wanted to keep it. Until one day he visited his elderly grandma at a nursing home and saw how she couldn’t quite remember him, things changed. She did have a memory issue and while she slightly remembered the boy as her grandson she absentmindedly referred to him as her husband, Mike. She then went on to tell him things that he should not have known. He didn’t want to see his grandma or anyone in this state, so he shaved off his moustache. Sometimes in life people want to be make decisions about what they want and only through life experiences realize what
The moustache made Mike feel older, he thought if he had it he would have more of a say or treated differently. It also was the symbol of the story. When it was there Mike took on the type of worries that no teenage boy should have. It was almost as though the moustache was able to make Mike different or older in a way. No one was really on his side when he had it, but when it was gone all those struggles he had with people seemed to go away. He was able to be his 17 year old self with no worries. It was almost as though the author was trying to convey that type of thinking to the readers. In the beginning of the story Mike comes downstairs after being forced to go to his grandmother’s nursing home. His mother checks to see how he looks and states, “I still say a seventeen-year-old has no business wearing a moustache.” She then goes on to say how “It’s costing you money, Mike,” and although Mike knew of this he continued to want it. You could tell that the moustache meant something to him and he didn’t want to shave it off because he obviously liked it. In a way he was trying to prove that he was older and could manage what older people are able to manage. Although the moustache had continued to give the boy trouble, he wanted to keep it. Sometimes in life people want to be able to make their own
We also are told how he has been avoiding going, so as he enters the room all his worries come to him. He worries about his grandma’s ability to remember things and whether she will know who he is or not. So when she looks up at him and mistakenly thinks he is her husband, who’s moustache was particularly similar, Mike begins to feel uneasy. “Mike, Mike, I didn’t think you would come", she says. She then goes on talking about memories. The only thing was Mike did not recall these memories as they were that of his grandparents. They were memories he hadn't yet experienced in life. The moustache was almost rushing things for him. At first he wanted to feel and look older but by the end realized that the right thing to do was be his teenage self. “I was beginning to feel uneasy, because she regarded me with such intensity.” The impact that his Grandma left on him “felt kind of spooky.” When Mike went home he knew what he had to do. He had learned that what he wanted wasn’t necessarily right for him. He then shaved off what at the beginning of the story, was his prized possession.

He would be able to be a teenage boy once again. “Instead I went upstairs and took out the electric razor Annie had given me for Christmas and shaved off my moustache.” You could tell that this action was surprisingly hard for him and took a lot of strength. Even from