6. The Tale of the Two Bad Mice

(1)Beatrix Potter 1904 Tom Thumb unable to
cut ham

In this post, I would like to focus on the human, civilised way of eating compared to the animalistic. The best way to explore this theme is through Beatrix Potter's text, The Tale of the Two Bad Mice (1904). Within this text, it is very apparent that it is one of her earlier texts as it does not have the darkness that some of her other later texts portray. Instead, this text is quite a light text due to what happens in the story and also the illustrations.

(2) Page 153 Plaster food

At the beginning of the narrative, the reader is introduced to the fact the dolls house is beautiful, and that the two dolls who live there own the house "at least it belonged to Lucinda, but she never ordered meals. Jane was the cook; but she never did any cooking' (Potter 152) this quote was fascinating to me as it is meant to be humorous because dolls cannot cook. But underneath it is saying that even in a fantasy world for children Lucinda is the owner and Jane is the servant/cook. There is a social hierarchy even within children's playthings. 
Throughout my research into the text, it is interesting to find the cultural and contextual hints from the Victorian era in Potters work. For example in the pages following the last quote, it is interesting to note that the mice are civilised, trying to eat the plaster and paint ham with a knife and fork. But then they have animalistic tendencies with their actions following the disappointing dinner.  They break apart the food and then tear apart the house this is all in need of finding food. The illustrations depict them as animals without clothes (as I have discussed in a previous post). Although at the end of the text Hunca Munca is humanised by wearing the dolls dress and cleaning the dollhouse. 

(3)Page 160/161 Destroying the food

The plaster food is interesting as a concept because it relates to childhood and the plastic food that is now in the modern day. But these are represented as highly valued food. The dining table includes ' two red lobsters and a ham, a fish, a pudding and some pears and oranges' (Potter 153) all of these pieces are expensive items for a dinner party. They are beautiful but fake and these little pieces for the dolls house are still used in dolls houses today. 

(4) Page 162 Destruction

'There were tin spoons, and lead knives and forks, and two dolly chairs' (Potter 158) the detail on what kinds of metal and material the utensils are added to the intricacy of simple language. They are soft and cheap materials instead of hard silver. The good housewife if represented too "it is not boiled enough; it is hard. You have a try, Hunca Munca."(Potter 159) by letting Tom Thumb carve the meat they are taking on the male and female roles within the house. Potter cleverly intertwines the civilised with the animalistic, boiling the ham is not what an animal would do but they know to do that anyway. It also represents the fact that Jane the cook who does not cook (because she is a doll) would not know how to prepare a ham. Also in the next line "It's as hard as the hams at the cheesemonger's"(Potter 160), this is important because it suggests a human motive which is that Hunca Munca is a good shopper (part of the Victorian ideal of a housewife) she would know not to get her Ham from a certain place.   

Works and Images cited

Potter, Beatrix. The Beatrix Potter Collection. Vol. One. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2014. Print.

(1) Potter, Beatrix. "Tom Thumb unable to cut ham" 1904 Digital Image

(2) Foord, Korie. "Plaster Food" 2017 JPEG file

(3) Foord, Korie. "Destroying the food" 2017 JPEG file

(4) Foord, Korie. "Destruction" 2017 JPEG file