Messages (Subliminal or Otherwise) in Dr. Seuss

[cgannon64]

I was at a friend's house today and he has a little sister. On his coffee table was a Dr. Seuss book, who's title I forget. Anyway the book was about a forest of truffla trees, and the big bad industrialists come and cut down all the truffla trees to make pointless items, thneeds. (I forget the name of the item they make, but the side of their trucks had the sign 'You Need A Thneed' which I found funny) The industrialists make more and more of the thneeds until they destroy the forest and run out of truffla trees to make the things, so they move on to another place, living the air thick and smoggy and the place a wasteland. Just when you think its going to end on a depressing note the character flies up into the air and gets a magic seed to replant the whole forest again.

Anyway, I found the enviromentalist and anti-industry message rather entertaining. I also heard somewhere that the Cat in the Hat has some Cold War parable to it, or something like that...

Anyway, this led me to wonder: Are there more subliminal or blatent messages in Dr. Seuss? Is Green Eggs and Ham about something? Or how about (forget details here) the story about the guy on stilts and the flood that will destroy his kingdom?

I'd love to read through my old Dr. Seuss books and see if there are hidden meanings in there.

 

[Perfection]

Well, yeah, he was a damn commie!

 

[Plexus]

Actually, one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books is THE BUTTER BATTLE BOOK. It is a very interesting satire on the Cold War, and likely a reason why I am here now.

Edit: Fixed title.

 

[Roundman]

The Sneetches was a message supporting race-mixing. The star-bellied Sneetch "race" started out better in the beginning than the plain belly Sneetch "race," but thanks to the capitalist's star making machine, race became indeterminable, and everyone lived happily together in loving Sneetch brotherhood.

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

He was anti-Hitler before it was fashionable. In fact he did a lot of political cartoons about Hitler.

 

[cgannon64]

Butter Battle?



The name itself is funny. I have to dig up copies of Dr. Seuss...

@ Perfection: Are you sarcastic, or was he actually a liberal?

 

[Perfection]

He was very liberal in his day.

 

[bobgote]

Originally posted by cgannon64
I was at a friend's house today and he has a little sister. On his coffee table was a Dr. Seuss book, who's title I forget. Anyway the book was about a forest of special plants, and the big bad industrialists come and cut down all the trees to make pointless items. (I forget the name of the item they make, but the side of their trucks had the sign 'You Need A ____' which I found funny) The industrialists make more and more of these items until they destroy the forest and run out of trees to make the things, so they move on to another place, living the air thick and smoggy and the place a wasteland. Just when you think its going to end on a depressing note the character flies up into the air and gets a magic seed to replant the whole forest again.

The Lorax! Truffela Trees!
You need a thneed!

I loved that book.

 

[Roundman]

Cgannon, your orignal post is the sory of the Lorax.

 

[cgannon64]

Thanks for filling in the blanks.

BTW I just saw a crazy thing online, saying the Cat in the Hat was all about Freud's psychology and the Id, Ego, and Superego, and the fish was Christian morality. Some of it made sense (like the fish as Christian morals and how he tries to stop the children from acting out their negative impulses) or how the Cat was the Id, trying to make their lives chaotic, but some of it seemed like a stretch, like the toys the Cat takes out as examples of the Oedipidal triangle.

EDIT: Just remembered another book. Could "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" be about race?

 

[Silverflame]

You're very right about the anti-logging message in the Lorax. In fact, the loggers noticed this and tried to ban the book (not enough to get on the top 100 list of banned books appearantly )

 

[stratego]

I read somewhere that the Lorax symbolizes Christ.

The word TRUFFULA also breaks down into several phonetic anagrams of which "True Alpha" (TRU ALFFU, the U sound being like the neutral schwa sound like the E in the ER ending) and "fulla fruit" (FULA FRUT, i.e., "full of fruit") are the most relevant. Since it is literally the Tree of Life in the story (Seuss capitalizes the T in Tree), the fact that the Truffula Tree contains seeds of its own destruction, the "fatal fur" (FATUL FUR) of its tufts and the "future fall" (FUTUR FAL) of the Truffula paradise is especially ironic.

Here's the linkAnalyzing Seuss

 

[Mark Young]

What about green eggs and Ham? That should be ok?

 

[zippy]

Originally posted by Sir Eric
What about green eggs and Ham? That should be ok?

Sounds like GM food to me. :rant:

 

[Pongui]

Horton Hears a Who was a favorite of mine.

From the Amazon.com reviewer, Richard Farr:

"This classic is not only fun, but a great way to introduce thoughtful children to essentially philosophical questions. How, after all, are we so sure there aren't invisible civilizations floating by on every mote? "

And now, in all seriousness, I believe there are.