The City Mouse and the Country Mouse (UK English accent)

0:00 – 1:35

A simple supper meets a glamorous sales pitch

It starts with a contrast you can picture immediately: one mouse living among tall buildings, shops, and restaurants, and another tucked into a cozy nest at the bottom of a tree. The country mouse's home is small, but the story makes a point of what small gives her: it is warm and comfortable. She serves a dinner gathered from her own garden, corn, carrots, acorns, and a cold glass of water from the stream. It is not fancy, but it is calm, local, and enough. Then the city mouse begins doing what people often do when they want their life to sound impressive. He talks and talks. The city is amazing, he says. He goes to the theater and the museum. His house has TWENTY rooms. He asks, almost like he is offering access to a higher level of life, "Have you ever tried Chinese food?" That detail matters because it becomes the symbol of everything exotic and exciting that the country mouse feels she is missing. That night, the country mouse does not simply think about visiting. She dreams. In her dream she lives in the city, eats at fancy restaurants, says fancy things, and buys fancy hats from fancy stores. The repetition of "fancy" tells you exactly what has happened: she has fallen in love with an image, not a reality. By the time she wakes up saying, "How wonderful! I want to live in the city too!", the trap is already set. The city mouse has not lied exactly, but he has edited. He has told the highlight reel and left out the cost.