The world according to Dr. Seuss

This spring Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) enjoyed his 80th birthday, and from La Jolla, Calif., where he lives, to Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C., where Senator Daniel Moynihan speechified in the Seussian style, testimonials rang throughout the land. Children and former children wished the celebrated author of 60 books a happy day, complete with the Birthday Honk-Honker and the Birthday Hi-Sign-and-Shake from wondrous Katroo town.

Born in Springfield, Mass, and educated at Dartmouth College and oxford University, Geisel spent a year traveling in Europe. Upon his return to the United States, he drew cartoons and wrote satirical pieces for magazines. Hollywood became his workshop during the next four years as a screen artist, a career he cut short in order to enter the field of advertising, a venture crowned with success. Children may not recall, but at least two generations of parents and grandparents we remember a phrase of his which hopped straight out of a memorable series of advertisements into standard American English: "Quick, Henry, the Flit!"

Eventually bored with advertising, Geisel looked into the creative possibilities of picture books for children and came up with And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (1937). It was his first book for children, and almost 50 years later he continues to pull books out of his hat, and children and their parents are freshly amazed at his magic.

Some teachers and librarians fault Dr. Seuss' distaste for the common-place and his savoring of lighthearted fantasy spiced with a dash of anarchy. They criticize his style as predictable. But children and adults pay little heed and continue to rollick in his characterizations and his great, good humor.

The Cat In The Hat (1957) was the first of Random House's Beginner Book Series, a highly successful publishing venture using books that employed a small vocabulary and considerable repetition as aids to children learning to read. Many, though not all, of the books in the series have been written by Theodor S. Geisel under the pseudonyms of Dr. Seuss and Theo Le Seig. Altogether, more than 50 million copies of the books have been sold in the United States and several million in Britain.

Since Dr. Seuss is one of the most successful of 20th century children's book authors, as well as an innovator at the forefront of change in beginner reading education, it is logical to ask: Who are his characters? What do they think and say and do? Whom do they represent?

About two-thirds of his books portray human characters, usually in some form of interaction with animal frieds. Major human characters are exclusively male and white and usually middle-class. Dr. Seuss seems to admire the ingenuity and spirit of young boys; if young girls appear at all they are uncommonly quiet, even silent. Non-white human characters appear in only two books (although animal characters come in all colors). The socioeconomic class is clear from the settings in which characters live: The youngsters enjoy modest but comfortable homes in orderly and quiet neighborhoods.

Many of the animal friends, however, are quite the opposite: immodest, disorderly and noisome. The reader has rarely, if ever, seen the likes of them before. There are animals like the Bustard, a fine fluffy bird who only eats custard; the Obsk, from the Mountain of Tobsk; the Mulligatawny, a high-stepping animal fast as the wind from the blistering sands of the Desert of Zind.

What do these characters, human or animal, need and want? In well over half the books, the needs are primarily for play and adventure. A few books reveal concern for the needs of physical safety, some for love and friendship, and a few for strength and achievenement. Dr. Seuss' overwhelming emphasis on play and adventure is quite uncharacteristic of 20th century American books for children, most of which emphasize love and friendship or strength and achievenement. Furthermore, Dr. Seuss' characters encounter few real problems in satisfying their needs. Children, especially male children, are rarely frustrated by confrontation with insuperable barriers, either physical or psychological.

How do Seussian characters satisfy their needs? First of all, it is the character himself who satisfies his own needs, primarily through creative self-direction rather than through conformity to traditional social norms. Moreover, the characters usually satisfy their needs in unique ways. These features distinguish Dr. Seuss' books from most 20th century books for children, for in most, needs are met primarily through conformity to adult norms. Dr. Seuss encourages children to believe that they are in control, that they can change themselves and their environment and even the whole world if they choose!

dr. Seuss, by and large, views the world as a friendly place. In about two-thirds of his books, characters are really quite congenial, although in the others they do exhibit hostility along with congeniality. In only one book, his latest one, is the tone of hostility overwhelming. The Butter Battle Book (1984) takes nuclear war as its theme, and it ends without resolution of the issues. While the format of this book--size, print, illustrations--resembles that of his other children's books, the message does not. In this book Dr. seuss turns didactic and calls up many moral arguments adults make against nuclear proliferation. In only two other books does the spectre of death appear: The Lorax (1971), where the threat is environmental, and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1938), where the threat is political.

Of the 50 children's books with stories to tell, 35 focus on the individual character and his unique needs, eight on the individual character as the relates to other characters, and seven on the individual interacting with and dependent upon a larger society. Let us look at each of these perspectives. The Individual Alone

Most of the books feature a young boy exploring his universe. He explores it, questions it, seeks to change it. And when he is finished, he is satisfied that he has improved upon this universe.

And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street is a wonderful example of a boy creating such adventure on his own. Marco's father instructs him to be alert to the world around him and to learn from it as he walks home from school. Marco does look carefully around Mulberry Street, but all he can see is a horse and a wagon. Not much to see! So he invents a zebra, who pulls a chariot with its charioteer; a reindeer, who pulls a sled with two Eskimos aboard; an elephant, who roars down Mulberry Street drawing a red wagon loaded with a big brass band; and an airplane, which dumps confetti on all of the street's colorful inhabitants.

In the same vein, If I Ran The Zoo (1950) features an enterprising young boy, Gerald McGrew, who, though not unappreciative of the zoo in his community, nonetheless wishes to make a few changes. Lions and tigers, says Gerald, are awfully old-fashioned. He wants something new. As a zook-keeper, therefore, he would open each cage, let the old-fashioned animals go, and find some beasts of a more unusual kind. He has in mind a family of Joats, with feet like cows and voices like goats; Chuggs, who are keen-shooter, mean-shooter, bean-shooter bugs; and, from a cave in Kartoom, a beast called the Natch that no hunter's been able to catch. Gerald is confident that his improvements in the city zoo would be well received by his neighbors, and, of course, that they would invite him to become the zoo manager. The whole world would say that Gerald McGrew has made his mark, has built a zoo better than Noah's Ark.

A similar theme, developed in I Wish That I Had Duck Feet (1965), is self-improvement. A blonde-haired, introspective young man decides that life would be more livable with duck feet. With duck feet he would avoid going to the shoe store, he would be able to exhibit his unique feet to less fortunate friends, and he would be able to paddle across the pond. However, he knows that his mother would object to the water puddles on her spotless living room floor, so he gives up his scheme for self-improvement in exchange for two deer horns on his head. Deer horns also prove to have disadvantages as well as advantages--he could no longer ride the school bus because he could not get his horns inside the door. The whale spout he imagines on top of his head, the long, striped tail and, finally, the elephant nose all appear to be mixed blessings. More and more aware of the limitations on all his dreams, he finally achieves a state of contentment primarily by becoming content with himself as he is.

Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? (1970) features Mr. Brown, a near-perfect model for any growing boy. Mr. Brown is a most accomplished person: He can moo like a cow, buzz like a bee, go pop like a cork and sound klopp like horse's feet. Mr. Brown can crow like a rooster, hoot like an owl and whisper like a butterfly. He can sound like an old-fashioned choo-choo train and can even imitate a hippopotamus chewing gum. At his very best, he can produce thunder and lightning. Mr. Brown's adventures and accomplishments are the envy of any child who dreams of reaching that far-away state of adulthood. The Individual In Relation To Others

Although most of Dr. Seuss' characters are loving, kind and generaous toward each other and toward others, some are hostile, aggressive and selfish. In this he is consistent with the views of child development specialists, who have learned that portrayal of one type of character without the other leaves the child with a distorted sense of reality. Child development specialists have suggested that a major fault in books for children is the failure to deal directly with people's aggressive drives. Depiction of greater complexity in personality helps the child-reader better to understand both the direction these diverse drives can take him and the direction in which he can take them.

Thidwick, hero of Thidwick The Big-Hearted Mosse (1948), is an animal who allows other creatures--bingle bugs and tree-spiders and zinn-a-zu birds, squirrels, bobcats, and turtles--to live in comfort on his horns. He doesn't say "skat," because that isn't right, or "scram" because that isn't polite. Though it is a considerable inconvenience to him to carry them all, and very uncomfortable besides, he is happy as their host because they satisfy his need to be hospitable. Only when it is time to she his old horns and grow new ones does he rid himself of this selfish bunch of free-loaders. Justice prevails, because Thidwick is able to swim to safety from human hunters while his parasitical boarders are bagged and stuffed.

The elephant hero of Horton Hatches The Egg (1940) has a need to be helpful and loving. While passing a tree, he agrees to help a lazy bird by sitting on the egg in her nest while she flies off for a vacation in Palm Beach. Horton sits in that tree on that egg through thunder and lightning, snow and sleet. He does so because he had promised to stay on the egg and not let it freeze. Meanwhile, the mother bird is having so much fun on her vacation that she decides never to return to her offspring. The faithful Horton keeps his pledge despite many kinds of problems and the ridicule of other animals. Once more justice prevails, for, when the egg hatches, oh my word, it's something brand new: an elephant bird!

Hooper Humperdink. . .? Not Him! (1976) features an expansive young man with a desire for high-spirited, imaginative play. He decides to throw a party, a huge party with many guests and ten tons of ice cream. He invites Alice and Abe, Bob and Bill and Babe, Charlie and Clara and Cora, Danny and Daisy and Dora, but not Hooper Humperdink. He asks every kid he likes, including Irene and Ivy and Ike, but not Hooper Humperdink. Decorations for the party meanwhile become more and more elaborate, as do the numbers of guests, the refreshments and the entertainment. As the party becomes more grand and the party giver swells with self-pride, he decides no one should miss it, not even Hooper Humperdink. So, on the last page, Hooper is invited. The Individual In Relation To Society

Individual characters are linked to larger social contexts in a few of Dr. Seuss's books. Some deal with threats to individual freedom in the forms of tyrannical, profiteering rulers, environmental hazards and nuclear war. Others extol friendship between differing racial, ethnic and national groups.

The Lorax is a story of greed and power personified in a character called the Once-ler. Back in the days when the grass was still green and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean, the Once-ler came to a wonderful place where Truffula Trees grew. With tufts of many bright colors, they swayed in the breeze, a truly glorious sight. But the Once-ler saw them only as a commercial opportunity and began to chop them down, one after the other. From the soft, silk tuft he knitted thneeds, fine-somethings-that-all-people-need. He sold them, at great profit to himself and his relatives who manufactured them, for use as shirts, socks, gloves, hats, carpets, pillows and sheets.

But then appears the Lorax, a funny brown creature who wants to save both the trees and the animals who play in their shade and eat of their fruit. The Once-ler ignores the Lorax and builds a huge factory which makes smogulous smoke (the Soomee-Swans then cannot sing a note; no one can sing a note with smog in his throat) and glumps the pond (no more the Humming-Fish hummed because their gills were all gummed). When the last Truffula Tree falls there are no more trees and no more thneeds and no more work to be done. So the factory workers drive away, and all that is left is the bad-smelling sky, a big empty factory, the Once-ler and the Lorax.

That is not quite the end of the story. The Once-ler has kept a Truffula seed, the last one of all, and he gives it to a boy. He tells the boy that the Lorax was right after all, and that if the boy plants the seed and treats it with care, there is hope for the environment and for those who live it.

The Butter Battle Book is about two groups of animals who live on either side of a stone wall and who fear the threat to their safety that each poses for the other. On one side of the wall are the Yooks, who eat their bread with butter side up; on the other side are the Zooks, who eat their bread with butter side down. Neither group trusts the other because of its odd ways, so each group sets up a border patrol. At first the protective instruments are mild: snick-berry switches and sling-shots. Then they become more elaborate and powerful: triple-sling jiggers, jigger-rock snatchems, kick-a-poo kids, and also the eight-nozzled, elephant-toted boom-blitz.

Finally the Yooks invent the bitsy big-boy boomeroo, a most powerful bomb. All other Yooks are ordered underground for safety while Grandfather Yook leaps on the wall to hurl the bomb. But he learns from a Zook who also leaps on that wall that the Zook has the same bomb. Who's going to drop it, Yook or Zook? There is no closure: It is left for the Yooks and the Zooks and the reader to answer the question.

On a much different note is Come Over To My House (1966). This is the only book by Dr. Seuss in which children of both sexes and a number of ethnic and racial groups interact. They explore each other's homes in a spirit of love and friendship. Children appear with white and black and brown faces, straight and curly hair, round and oval eyes. Children live in houses of brick, staw, paper, wood, clay and ice-block. Some of the houses float in the water and some sit on stilts. Children play, eat, work and sleep in different modes, but always with dignity and with a sense of the commonalities between them. Fun That Is Funny

wit and wisdom populate the world of Dr. Seuss. He provides the child-reader with many scenarios for play and adventure, and his creative imagination enriches and enlarges their world. He entices the child to read on, because the next page is unpredictable and so is the one after that. He entices the child to think on, because there is always more than a horse and wagon to be found on Mulberry Street. Generations of children and parents and grandparents are fortunate that the good Dr. takes them so seriously.

COPYRIGHT 1984 U.S. Government Printing Office
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group