The Tale of Two Bad Mice is one of Beatrix Potter's early works. In it, a pair of mice explore a dollhouse while the occupants are out and wind up trashing the place.
This book provides examples of:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: While one of Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca's children wears a gown, the other three just wear bows.
- Children Are Innocent: The girl who owns the dollhouse decides to prevent further mouse break-ins by getting a policeman doll.
- Civilized Animal: Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca — they behave like real mice for the most part but use utensils and later on, they start using furniture and clothes.
- Dramatic Irony: We're already told that the dolls' food is all fake, but Tom Thumb doesn't know and believes the reason the ham is hard is that it's underboiled.
- Dull Surprise: Jane is supposed to be surprised but retains the same slight smile. She's a doll, after all, so it's not like she can move her face.
- Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Hunca Munca starts out naked but then later starts wearing Lucinda's dresses. One of her children also wears a gown.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite vandalising the dollhouse, the mice made amends. Tom Thumb finds a crooked sixpence under the hearthrug. On Christmas Eve, he and Hunca Munca put it into one of the stockings of Lucinda and Jane, to pay for the damages. Hunca Munca also begins sweeping the dollhouse every morning.
- Living Toys: Lucinda and Jane are sentient dolls. They don't need food, but they can walk and talk.
- Lost Food Grievance:
- Upon realising that the "ham" is made of plaster, both mice fly into "rage and disappointment" and break the rest of the play food and throw it into the (play) fire.
- Hunca Munca's discovery that the jars contained no food despite being labelled "rice", "coffee", and "sago" is described as a disappointment for her.
- May It Never Happen Again: Both of the humans try to prevent the mouse vandalism from happening again — the girl gets a (presumably also living) police doll, while the nurse sets a mousetrap. It turns out to be moot anyway, since the mice have no interest in doing it again.
- A Mischief of Mice: Downplayed. Sure, they vandalized the dollhouse, but they get better in the end.
- Must Make Amends: Tom Thumb pays for the damages with a sixpence he finds, and Hunca Munca begins sweeping the dollhouse every morning.
- No Name Given: Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca's four children, plus the unseen little girl and nurse, are unnamed.
- Perpetual Smiler: Justified for Jane, who, despite being alive, still can't move her face due to being a doll and thus always smiles.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Parodied. It's outright stated that Jane, despite being designated as "the cook", never did any cooking because, since she's a sentient doll in a dollhouse, all of her food is pre-made anyway and despite being sentient, she still never has to eat it.
- Rhyming Names: The female mouse (doe) is named Hunca Munca.
- Shout-Out Theme Naming: Tom Thumb is named after the title character of Tom Thumb. In some versions of the story, Tom Thumb marries King Arthur's daughter, Princess Huncamunca.
- Unholy Matrimony: The two bad mice in the title are also a married couple.
- Women Are Wiser: While Tom Thumb indulges in aimless vandalism, his wife ransacks the house for things that would actually be useful to them.
