The City vs. the Country: Difference between revisions

Plot A:

Alice is a sweet [[Country Mouse]] who grew up in a sparsely-populated rural area, either on a farm or simply a small town in the middle of nowhere. Either of her own desire or against her will she moves to the big city. She doesn't like it because it's so much bigger, city people [[Apathetic Citizens|aren't]] as [[Close -Knit Community|friendly]] and they look down on her because they consider her a backwoods hick. This kind of plot is usually resolved by Alice getting to move back to the country and appreciating it more if she originally hated it.

Plot B:

Bob is a [[City Mouse]] who lives in a big city with lots of friends and loves to go everywhere. He's likely very independent and materialistic as well. Almost always against his will, he is moved to a much smaller area be it the suburbs or a small town. He will hate it because it's boring, there's nothing to do, and country people are completely different from city people. If it's a farm he'll resent having to help out on the farm. By the end of the story he'll have learned [[An Aesop]] and come to like his new home, realising it is much better than his old life.

As you can see there is a very obvious [[Double Standard]] in that a country person who doesn't like life in the city is free to move back home while a city person will just have to put up with life in the country. Some works will portray the city as being full of criminals and shady people, often with a lot of drugs thrown in while the country people will be more innocent, ignoring the obvious fact that small towns have drugs and criminals as well. Compare [[Welcome to the Big City]], [[Country Mouse]] and [[City Mouse]]. It's worth noting that the characters who move do not necessarily have to fit the Country Mouse/City Mouse character types.

* In ''[[Aesop's Fables]]'' the Country Mouse visits her friend the City Mouse and is terrified by the city, swearing never to go back again because the country is simpler and safer.

* ''[[The Bell Jar]]'' has Esther Greenwood struggling to survive in New York City.

* Diggory Kirke in ''[[The MagiciansMagician's Nephew]]'' is very unhappy that he has to move from his country home to a house in London when his mother falls ill. When she recovers he is overjoyed to return to the country. Frank the cab driver is also from the country and is thrilled when he becomes King of Narnia. CS Lewis also gives a rather unfortunately phrased paragraph about how city people talk and Frank's reward is getting his old country accent back.

* The video for The Script's "For The First Time" has a young Irish couple living in New York for work and missing Ireland. At the end of the video they buy tickets to move back home.

* ''Bernice Bobs Her Mullet'', a [[All Musicals Are Adaptations|musical adaptation]] of ''[[Bernice Bobs Her Hair]]'', has Bernice from a hick town visiting her cousin in the City (pretty much the opposite of the original story, though the rest of the plot is exactly the same).

* In ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'' Lila moves from a farm to the big city and is immediately resented and made fun of by the other kids. Subverted when she stays in the city and the other kids warm to her.

* ''[[Arachnophobia]]'' has a young doctor and his family move into a small town. The townspeople immediately resent him for being from the city.

* ''The Nephew'' has an American teenager moving from New York to a remote and conservative Irish island. After clashing with his uncle he decides to go back to America but eventually is convinced to stay.

* ''[[Jersey Girl]]'' has Ben Affleck's character forced to give up his publicist job and move from New York to New Jersey in order to raise his daughter. He tries to get his publicist job back and suggests moving back to the city but of course he learns his Aesop.

* In ''Sweet Home Alabama'', a woman from [[Sweet Home Alabama]] who has become a fashion designer in [[Big Applesauce]] has to go home to sever ties with her [[Childhood Marriage Promise]] {{spoiler|who she actually married and he never signed the divorce papers}} before she can marry her New York fiance.

* In ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' Ted and Stella debate over whether Stella and her daughter will move to New York or Ted will move to New Jersey to live with them. Stella wins. {{spoiler|Subverted when Stella and her daughter move in with Tony in the city}}.

* Played with in ''[[Green Acres]]''. Oliver is tired of city life and moves to Hooterville to live the idyllic (he thinks) life of a farmer. He finds, however, that Hooterville [[Cloudcuckooland|operates by its own peculiar set of rules]], and is often frustrated by its colorful denizens. His socialite wife Lisa is always begging him to return to the city, but, ironically, she is the one who fits in, as she is [[Strange Minds Think Alike|as loopy as the Hootervillians]].

* The premise of ''[[Northern Exposure]]''. [[Fish Out of Water]] Joel is a [[New York City]] boy fresh out of medical school; the state of Alaska paid for his education in return for him practicing in Alaska for 4 years. He's supposed to be posted in Anchorage but they overbudgeted their doctor-payments. He thinks that means he doesn't have to work in Alaska at all, but instead they send him to the tiny town of Cicely, where he spends a couple of years resenting being there before finally blending in, and eventually [[Going Native]] - when the government of Alaska is forced to let him out of his contract early, he leaves Cicely but stays in unincorporated Alaska.

* The reality series ''Escape To The Country'' which is pretty much [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].