Two mice story - analysis (part 3)

The two mice story allows us to think open mindedly and to infer different lessons from the text. Despite its shortness, we can derive multiple different analyses about different ways this text can be interpreted. In my last 2 articles, I talked about the life lessons we can infer and the symbolism between different elements of the story, such as hindsight bias, the power of preserverance, and others. You can read them here: part 1 and part 2.

Every time I write another analysis, I always open with the same, seemingly mundane quote. Some readers might skip it or shrug it off as repetitive, but I feel it's necessary, even for newcomers who might desire reading several articles at once. Why this is? It's because the refresher is very important. Since we have just one sentence, we are given the grace of opportunity to analyze everything and to take everything to our heart's content.

With that said, in my last article I analysed and broke down every physical element and explained the way I inferered their respective symbolisms. These takes are subjective, and anyone can counter and share their own opinions as they may like. However, what's most shrouded in ambiguity is the elephant in the room - the process of churning. How the second mouse churns the cream into butter.

Before I give my analysis on this, I want to make clear the symbolism between the bucket and the cream. They have to work together to present a clear threat to the mice - but at face value, what are they, each?

-the bucket represents life. Life is completely ambiguous - nobody is born knowing what will happen. Anything and everything will eventually happen given enough time. The bucket just represents us navigating our life. We want to be able to run around and do what we want in the bucket, similar to how people enjoy freedom and lavish lifestyles. However, not everyone has the same "bucket" of life. Some people are born into poverty. Some into oppression. Some war. Some have a bucket so big they don't know it even exists. To them, reaching the confines of the bucket is an impossible task, while some people struggle to turn around in their bucket, similar to how many struggle getting by in normal day to day life.

-the cream represents our debts. When we are in our "world", the bucket, we are free to do what we want. But when the cream gets poured in, we are effectively hindered by the cream. In real life, how we would stop to have to pay off credit card debt or taxes is no different than the symbolism potrayed in the story here. It's very easy to accumulate debts and to add up. The cream in the bucket adds up quickly - if we don't think and act fast, we drown.

My personal take, as a professional analyser of the two mice quote, is this: The churning of the cream is us seeing opportunity and hope through adversity, and taking the according action. I'll use this opportunity to share another popular quote: "When life gives you lemons, turn them into lemonade".

What you and I both understand is that this quote is said all the time. While it might not be cheesy, it gets troubling in the sense that it has difficulty getting a good message across. A two sentences long story can refresh this topic for so many people that find it bland and boring because this is one of the most important lessons in life, along with "the hardest part of struggling isn't the struggle. It's the realization that you're not alone and that everyone has to suffer like this".

Now, I interweaved these two quotes here because they go along together nicely with my interpretation of the churning of the cream.

When we understand these principles, we only need to connect the dots with the symbolism of the symbolism of the cream and the bucket, and my analogy becomes clear. However, this analogy is "volatile". There is no two mice police force forcing us to follow along with this analogy. Your interpretation of symbolism could be different, let alone the vast amount of interpretations of the churning.

What are YOU taking away?