Is Doctor Seuss a chauvinist?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Is Doctor Seuss a chauvinist? Petty? I think not. It is not that The Cat In The Hat is narrated by The Boy, and Sally takes a silent and somewhat bewildered backseat to her older and more powerfull brother. Nor is it her bow, which bears a striking similarity to The Cats bow–call that a coincidence, I won’t debate. Or that the wet blanket fish has more clout than mute Sally. Can she speak? Does she dare?

No, the indictment is in One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. The text does not contain the word ‘she’. Now, I expect to be flamed here, but I think the Yink is female, yet is referred to as a ‘he’ four times.

You are probably thinking I am some sort of male dunce that is drawing this conclusion because a licentious, winking Yink, decked out in pink, is drinking a pink cocktail WITH a straw.

So you think I think,
oh wow a Yink in Pink,
or that he must be gay.
A boy? No way!
No, that is not why, don’t even try.
Read ahead, you will see why.

The book was published in 1960, and it is the mores of that time that I rest my case. I know, I was there with my GI Joe. And even then I thought Yink was a fem.

You will point out that Dr. Seuss referred to all the creatures as ‘funny things’ and ‘pets’ and that stereotypes should not apply here. But the text is riddled with gendered characters–and one gender-bending Yink.

Take Nook, a male at one look.
Guess what? He can’t cook!

What about Mike,
the goon on the bike?
Don’t lie!
You know he’s a guy!

And the Gox who likes to box,
Do you think he’d like nylons,
or a pair of gym socks?

If Yink is a Drag-Queen, I do not care.
To each their own, moral watchdogs beware.
But my daughter wants to know if he’s a boy or a girl.
So I said as I do and I ducked under the cover.
I said I do not know, go ask your Mother.

Why didn’t the good Doctor just say ‘she’?
Is that little word so much lesser than ‘he’?

I only have the two books mentioned, and I hear D.S. took 220 words to create his best sellers. I plan to get Go Dog Go (my favorite) next.

One word of caution. After your child falls asleep, do not immediately pick up that great piece of work you were reading or writing. After reading any Dr. Seuss book 1200 times in one sitting before bedtime, it will saturate your consciousness and spill into the cadence of whatever you are doding. It will turn your literature (classical, horror, mystery, your thesis ) into pretty much sing-a-long prose and leave you pining for a lobotomy.

2

The OP is uncertain. I believe you may have accidentally posted this in the wrong forum.

Is this a rant about the literary style, or lack of it, in Dr. Seuss books? If so, take it to the Pit.

Is it your intent to share with us your parody of Dr. Seuss? Then it belongs in MPSIMS.

Is it a General Question as to whether Dr. Seuss is a chauvinist? I will provide you with the correct definition, from WordNet Vocabulary Helper, and perhaps that will help.

**

If it is your intention to debate whether or not Dr. Seuss was a jingoistic flag-waver, please clarify which country’s flag you think he was waving.

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

3

I always thought Dr. Seuss was a little hard on the Sneetches.

4

I’m a bit curious, Pooch. You mention the date of one book and allude to the mores of that period. At that point you have answered your own question.

If you want to debate/discuss the sexist leanings of Dr. Seuss, you must first read his The Seven Lady Godiva’s ©1939.

(Be prepared to defend your position.)

Tom~

5

I have read the three replys and I am thinking 1) what is a Sneetch? 2) should I check Amazon for The Seven Lady Godiva’s from? and 3) what kind of bug crawled up Notthemama’s ass.

I noticed Notthemama taggeg Omniscient for Mad Max!! David B’s favorite proselytizer as well. So many posts, **Nothemama[b/], so little time.

I had fun with the post, of course, and I will not apologize for it. There is nothing rantish about it, The OP is…excuse me, uncertain??? Do you mean:

  1. indefinite, indeterminate
  2. not certain to occur, problematical
  3. not reliable, untrustworthy
  4. a: not known beyond doubt, dubious
    b: not having certain knowledge, doubtful
    c: not clearly identified or defined
  5. not constant

Oh wow! Is my post becoming a bit presumptuous? Sorry about the definition. It may have been a bit patronizing.

I suppose congratulations are in order to tomndebb for deciphering the OP. It’s just that…damn! Homework!? Couldn’t we just stick with The Cat In The Hat, or Go Dog Go?

6

I will apologize for that post. Try this.

I have read the three replys and I am thinking 1) what is a Sneetch? 2) should I check Amazon for The Seven Lady Godiva’s from? and 3) what kind of bug crawled up Notthemama’s ass.

I noticed Notthemama tagged Omniscient for Mad Max!! David B’s favorite proselytizer as well. So many posts, Nothemama, so little time.

I had fun with the post, of course, and I will not apologize for it. There is nothing rantish about it, The OP is…excuse me, uncertain??? Do you mean:

  1. indefinite, indeterminate
  2. not certain to occur, problematical
  3. not reliable, untrustworthy
  4. a: not known beyond doubt, dubious
    b: not having certain knowledge, doubtful
    c: not clearly identified or defined
  5. not constant

Oh wow! Is my post becoming a bit presumptuous? Sorry about the definition. It may have been a bit patronizing.

I suppose congratulations are in order to tomndebb for deciphering the OP. It’s just that…damn! Homework!? Couldn’t we just stick with The Cat In The Hat, or Go Dog Go?

7

[Moderator Hat: ON]

Ok, so is it a debate or not?

[Moderator Hat: At the ready…]

8

A sneetch.

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

9

What I meant when I said the OP was “uncertain”, Pooch, was, “WTF?”

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

10

Tom~ evidently has more patience than I do. So many posts, so little time…

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

11

**

“AAAHH!!”

Excellent! I can hear Omni’s screams of agony from all the way over here! HA HA HA HA HA! I’m glad he’s suffering, do you hear me, GLAD! I asked to have HIS OP clarified, too, and now he’s in unspeakable torment for it! Good! That’ll teach him not to express himself clearly! HA HA HA HA HA!!

How did I do it? It’s quite simple, really. All I had to say was:

** and immediately a host of sadistic demons began to tear out his fingernails one by one, while noxious sulfurous vapors were blown in his face and Madonna performed her new dance mix cover of “Eleanor Rigby”. HA HA HA!!

You’re next, Pooch. But I think for you it’s going to be the Backstreet Boys. HA HA HA HA HA!

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

12

I’m sorry, Notthemama, but you failed to phrase your answer in the form of rhymed dactylic tetrameter.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_122.html

13

[Moderator Hat: Back On]

Ok, I think I have my answer. Off to MPSIMS it goes.

David B, SDMB Great Debates Moderator

[Moderator Hat: Handed Off to Eut]

14

What shall be done with our Pooch the Perplexing,
To punish for threads that are pointless and vexing?

Sulfur and brimstone? A trip to the morgue?
A guest spot on “Star Trek” as “Snotti the Borg”?

No, no, it’s much better to just let him stew,
To twiddle his thumb-thread with nothing to do,

Until in God’s mercy it finally sinks,
And moves to “Page 2” with the other old links.

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

15

No, he most emphatically is not. He’s dead!

VB
I’ve performed a complete diagnosis of your car. It’s broken.

  • A Wally original!
16

If you’ll allow me to be a nit-picking jackass for a minute, let me point out that Go Dog Go was written by P.D Eastman, not the good Doctor.

17

Good post, Mouthbreather, considering that it came from a nitpicking jackass!

LMAO!

:smiley:

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

18

The OP reminded of a Freudian analysis of Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat that I read a few years ago. Well, I found it with the help of a search engine, and here it is.

http://www.seuss.org/seuss/freud.seuss.html

19

This is all just off the top of my head, but here goes:

To analyze something like the collected works of Dr. Suess with an eye toward analyzing whether or not the author was *chauvinist
*anti-Semitic
*an axe murderer
*dyspeptic is, IMHO, a mistake.

Remember, Theodore Giesel was from an entirely different generation, with different sensibilities from our present age. He was probably no more misogynistic than any other man born in the same era and area. Remember, he was brought up at a time when women’s roles were more clearly defined, and he may personally have identified more with boys than girls, and it shows in his writing. I doubt any deliberate attempt to denigrate females in his work was made by the good Doctor. His body of work was produced in an effort to create low-vocabulary high-interest picture books that would entertain children and encourage them to read. Keep in mind that most of the low-vocab books prior to his revolutionary Cat In The Hat were of the Dick and Jane variety, and they absolutely sucked rubber.

Now, if you want to discuss the political implications of Suess’s work, I think he was highly political in a number of his books, The Lorax and The Butter Battle Book being the most obvious ones. But re-read Bartholemew and the Oobleck, and keep in mind that it was published shortly after the bombing of Hiroshima. Man, it will give you chills!

Slightly off the subject, this reminds me of the often-debated subject of whether The Merchant of Venice indicates that Shakespeare was anti-Semitic. My opinion: probably no more or less than any other European non-Jew of the Elizabethan Era. With our late-20th Century sensibilities, we read a lot more than what the author intended. By the same token, did Shakespeare think all Italians were violent? There are a lot of Italians fighting and killing people in Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing, and others.

Hmmm…Methinks the OP doth protest too much.

The Dave-Guy
“Since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?” J.H. Marx