Speaking of Pathos...

"What I like about the poem is the way the speaker (the farmer) talks throughout the poem. It's like as if he himself went through what the mouse went through. The way he talks is like he empathizes the poor mouse.. poooor mouse :)" [Josh's talking about the speaker in the poem].  Do you expect John Steinbeck's narrator to relate to his characters the same way the farmer does in the poem vis-a-vis the mouse?