green eggs and communism- the hidden life of Dr.Suess

 You may hear the common American idol, Dr.Suess, and Imagine a familiar early childhood world, that of the peculiarly- illustrated cats, fish, and bears riding unicycles and bouncing in their father’s distended stomach. If not, then you have to recognize at least a cat standing on two legs wearing a striped top hat and red bowtie, maybe the small orange keeper of trees that innocently defends nature against cruel corporate capitalism, specifically multi-use scarves. You know Dr.Suess. Born Theodore Suess Geisel, on March 4th, 1904. He was always a creator of the bizarre. In his personal life, Dr.Suess met his first wife Helen Palmer while she was studying at Oxford University. Helen was also an author, but as you may Imagine during these times it was easy for the wive’s work to be overshadowed by their Husbands. She wrote a few books including “Do You Know What I’m Going to Do Next Saturday?” and “A Fish Out of Water under her maiden name. Although she was 6 years older than him, they got married in 1927. I just thought it might be interesting to include, Dr.Suess was not all friendly as his writing persona may seem to his young audience. Theodore and Helen had a tumultuous relationship, not all untouched by infidelity.

Geisel published his first work in 1928 in small local magazines and newspaper columns. He was among the artists at the time not taken all that seriously until one day he was enough to Publish his first Children’s book in 1937 “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” which featured the first appearance of that one Blue elephant that I later recognized in “Horton hears a Who!”. After a 27th publisher rejected his first manuscript, Dr. Seuss walked dejectedly along the sidewalks of New York, planning to burn the book in his apartment incinerator. On Madison Avenue, however, he bumped into Dartmouth friend Mike McClintock, who that very morning had started a job as an editor in the Vanguard Press children’s section. Within hours, the men signed a contract, and in 1937 Vanguard Press published “And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” which launched the extraordinary literary career of Dr. Seuss. “If I had been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I’d be in the dry-cleaning business today,” and the rest is history. Dr. Suess became a published Children’s book author by chance or maybe Fate. 

But what is less known about the Beloved Children’s author is his political ideologies and their influence on his art. According to an Article by The Defense Organization on American History “Drew posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board. But by 1943, Geisel wanted to do more, so he joined the U.S. Army. He was put in command of the animation department of the 1st Motion Picture Unit, which was created out of the Army Signal Corps- 

And again, in an Article from the BBC they wrote that  Dr. Seuss’s wartime output was “very impressive evidence of cartooning as an art of persuasion”, Spiegelman explains how they “rail against isolationism, racism, and anti-semitism with a conviction and fervor lacking in most other American editorial pages of the period… virtually the only editorial cartoons outside the communist and black press that decried the military’s Jim Crow policies and Charles Lindbergh’s anti-semitism”. Dr. Seuss, he argues, “made these drawings with the fire of honest indignation and anger that fuels all real political art”

By the time World War II ended in late September of 1945, a now 41-year-old Dr.Suess moved on from his political cartoons. The next year in 1946, he was honorably discharged from the Army. He began writing children's books full-time with his wife in La Jolla, California. He published many of his most beloved works, including The Cat in the Hat (1957), and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), Horton Hears a Who! (1955), Green Eggs and Ham (1960) By now, still in his personal life, his wife at the time Helen had gotten sick from Guillain Barre Syndrome, which caused her a lot of pain. This new change, separated the two a lot, and now with Theodore’s growing success, he neglected her often. It’s confirmed in the late 50’s and early 60’s Theodore began an affair with the woman who would eventually become his second wife. Audrey Dimond. Sadly, 

In short, I don’t see a problem with utilizing your talents to spread a political message. Sure, it sounds like a given as a fairly left-minded liberal who agrees with most of Dr.Suess’s beliefs for his time. I still don’t have an issue with it, if it were coming from conservative right-winged artists. It’s done all the time if you think about it. Realizing that a simple, childhood author could have such adult views seems jarring. But alas, every artist no matter what age their audience is, has political beliefs. Whether you agree with them or not, is what defines your reaction to learning of them. Dr.Suess (in my opinion) never pushed his agenda in his children’s books. Perhaps, the closest case was The Lorax (published in 1971) which expressed anti-capitalist ideology and encouraged the audience to mobilize their empathy in protecting the environment and natural resources. But allow me to ask you a question. If you have strong morals you’d like the future generations of children to believe wouldn’t you spread the message in the most digestible method to them?

On the contrary, you could argue that it’s inappropriate for Dr Suess to knowingly publish political cartoons while simultaneously publishing Children’s books with the identical nursery rhyme- still poems, and illustration style. Most Dr.Suess books are designed specifically for preschoolers to 4th-grade reading levels. And again, all the time we have issues with what is taught in schools. 

P.S., this may seem completely irrelevant to the conversation. But there is a theory on Reddit about Dr.Suess and the actual material of his children’s books. Coming from r/FanTheories, user GinjaNinja1027 posted

 “All of the Dr. Seuss books are connected, and they all take place in the mind of a boy. This boy lives a boring life; on a boring street with boring parents. These books take place inside the wacky world he imagines while living this boring life. The first book published by Dr. Seuss (To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry St.) has the boy seeing all of these characters and animals passing him on the street he lives on when in reality, all he saw was a horse-drawn carriage. 

This “imagining wacky characters” theme comes up a lot in Dr. Seuss’ subsequent books. “If I Ran the Zoo” tells of him being at the zoo with animals he’d seen before, and imagining all the goofy, non-existent animals that would live in his zoo. “If I Ran The Circus” follows the same theme. In “The Cat in the Hat” the boy and his sister are bored at home with nothing to do, and so he imagines a magical cat that comes and has fun with them. In that book, we find out that the boy has a goldfish, and the book that comes directly after (One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish), imagines all the different types of fish he wants and other funny things everywhere. As the boy grows up, he discovers the ins and outs of life and tailors his imagination to fit the things he learns. He learns how to read (Fox in Sox). He learns about Racism (the Sneeches), environmentalism (the Lorax), and war (the Butter Battle Book). This is him trying to understand these themes through his imagination. The last book published by Dr. Seuss, “Oh The Places You’ll Go!” is about a boy maturing as a person. In the book, he eventually reaches “The Waiting Place, " an allegory for adulthood. He realizes he has matured past his imaginary world and tells himself to let it go. The saga ends with him abandoning this imaginary world in favor of all the fun things he will experience in his real adult life.” I just figured this was a cute way to finish off today's episode.