...business with financial hardship at times. ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ reflects and resists the dominant ideology of consumerism; “For Tomorrow, he knew, all the Who girls and boys/Would wake bright and early. They’d rush for their toys!” (10th rhyming couplet/19th line). The poem plays the idea of materialism and directly connects it with Christmas. The main character, the Grinch, is of the lower economic class and resists bourgeoisie. He does not celebrate Christmas, and purely hates the positive spirit that comes with it. The Grinch thought to himself that he will stop Christmas from coming if he steals all the items that were bought in preparation for Christmas. The poem is directed towards an audience of young children whose families celebrate Christmas. If a child whose family did not celebrate Christmas due to religion or finances, the child would not understand the poem and the feeling the author is trying to convey. The title of the poem also twiddles the idea of materialism because the Grinch who stole Christmas actually didn’t steal Christmas; he stole all the presents and food that was meant for Christmas day. No one can actually steal Christmas as if it is an object. Christmas is a holiday that is meant to be celebrated by Christians and throughout time people and companies have marketed Christmas as a consumer’s holiday. Works Cited Primary Source: Geisel, Seuss, Theodor. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Random House...
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...I will be analyzing the poem "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" by Dr. Suess using the Marxist critic school of thought. Marxist Criticism is based on the theories of Karl Marx and is looked at the assembly of literary texts which is mostly about class differences along with socio-economic conditions. In the poem "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" if you take a look at it and analyze it carefully, you can see the differences in classes can be spotted easily. To begin with, it should be obvious that Dr. Seuss, was of middle class himself. He was the son of a successful brewmaster and was successful himself in his occupation of cartoonist and author. The Grinch on the other hand was of the lower class, he lived in the middle of nowhere and is an outcast to everyone else around him. While the Grinch was all upset, the Whos were within Whoville living pleasantly and celebrating Christmas. The Grinch hates the idea of Christmas because the presents and the food show that the Whos have money that they can spend without worry. Also all the Whos are happy and the Grinch doesn't think that it's fair, which is why he tries to ruin Christmas for them, he feels that they should suffer jbecause his life is miserable and he's suffering himself. He steals all their food and presents, as well and destroyed their Christmas decorations and the Christmas trees in Whoville. Later on in the poem, the Grinch is shown that Christmas isn't just about materialistic things, he stated that "Every Who down in...
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...Looking at the poem How The Grinch Stole Christmas through an archetypal lens is like looking at it in more of a mythical and creative way. The Grinch, who was an example of an archetype, was someone who hated Christmas and wanted to make everyone’s Christmas unenjoyably in WhoVille. The Grinch scared many Who’s in Who Ville due to his appearance. His green skin, his yellow teeth and ugly snarl made him different from everyone else. The Grinch feels alone and feels the need to take everyone’s happiness away from them because it’s unfair to him that he’s not happy as well. Later on in the poem, we meet Cindy Lou, who was an innocent little girl wondering why the Grinch was at her house taking her Christmas tree, she felt really sad because he was taking away everything they had. She was wondering why he was taking everything but he said that he just wanted to fix the tree, Cindy Lou who trusted the Grinch easily because she grew up in a friendly, trustworthy environment. The Grinch sneaks through the town to take everyone’s gifts so that he can have them for himself. When it is Christmas morning, the Grinch watched the Who’s in who Ville with the expectation of the Who’s to be sad. As he came closer, he realized that the presents and Christmas trees didn’t matter to them; they didn’t care about the materialistic things about Christmas "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. / Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!" (Suess, 1957) All the Who’s...
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...Feminist Critique: How The Grinch Stole Christmas How The Grinch Stole Christmas is a popular children's book by Dr. Seuss. This book is about a man - The Grinch - who hates Christmas and hatches a plan to 'stop it from coming' and then 'saves Christmas' after essentially being the reason the holiday needs to be saved in the first place. Like many of Dr. Seuss' books, there is an underlying theme or political statement, in this case the superiority of man. The man himself is a well known racist and bigot, due to his series of political cartoons which depicted racist images (Cross-Section of The World's Most Prosperous Department Store made for Judge Magazine, and his book The Sneetches for example), and antisemitism (The Sneetches is once again an example). To start things off in this particular case, there are barely any female characters. Every character - aside from Cindy-Lou Who - from the Grinch to his dog, Max, are male. To add insult to injury the only girl in the book, Cindy-Lou, is described with words like small and tiny and sounds like 'the coo of a dove'. Now this wouldn't be that big of an issue (considering Cindy-Lou is only two years old), if it wasn't for the fact that Cindy-Lou being the only girl in the story implies that all girls are suppposed to be small, tiny, sound like a dove and, essentially, are inferior when compared to men (Cindy-Lou compared to The Grinch). Dr. Seuss also uses Cindy-Lou to show that women are weak minded and easily manipulated while...
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...Seuss’ poem, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, exemplifies the features of a Marxist structure. The Marxist lens examines the social-economic factors and how it impacts the character’s beliefs, values, attitudes and ideas. The protagonist is Grinch, who lives isolated in a snow cave north of Whoville, where the majority of the townspeople live. Grinch “prefers” to be alienated from the community because he despises the ‘Whos’ and their annual Christmas traditions. However, it is not his preference that motivates him to resent Christmas, but his financial struggles that do not correlate to the ‘Whos’. As a result, in the celebration of Christmas, Grinch does not receive nor is able to afford gifts for others, thus, provoking him to despise the festivity of Christmas and the people who celebrate it. One example would be how the Grinch describes into great detail of the materialistic gifts the ‘Whos’ receive on Christmas, “they’d rush for their toys”, which is an example of the Grinch’s interest and observation into the activities on Christmas. From a Marxist point of view that conflicts are a result of social-economic factors, the apparent idea of the poem is made clear: money makes the world go around. In the quote, “then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant, around the room, and he took every present”, the reader is made aware that since the Grinch does not have these lavish items in comparison to the ‘Whos’, his actions signify his belief of how materialistic objects...
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...Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is solely based around men and their superiority to women. A story is told about a man, the Grinch, who wants to stop Christmas. The only female character in the story is two year-old Cindy-Lou Who – even the Grinch's dog is male. When she is introduced, Cindy-Lou is immediately described as little and tiny. This is suggestive that she is inferior to the Grinch and suggests that women, in general, are inferior to men. The phrase, "a small sound like the coo of a dove" is describing the noise Cindy-Lou made. This line is indicating that she is gentle and quiet and that all women are as well. Cindy-Lou then asks the Grinch, "Santy Claus, why,/Why are you taking our Christmas tree? WHY?" In response, the...
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...Dr. Seuss is a very famous children's book author. He has written many books such as "Are You My Mother?", "Green Eggs and Ham", "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!", "And To Think I Saw It On MULBERRY STREET!" He even wrote the famous “If I Ran the…” books. There’s an endless amount I could go on forever but I would fill up my whole essay. This popular man has been very successful and has a gift of writing these amazing, entertaining books for all the children out in the world to read. He was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was given the name Theodor Seuss Geisel but is now known as Dr. Seuss. His dad and grandfather were brew masters while he was growing up. His mother...
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...Barack Obama Dreams from My Father “For we are strangers before them, and sojourners, as were all our fathers. 1 CHRONICLES 29:15 PREFACE TO THE 2004 EDITION A LMOST A DECADE HAS passed since this book was first published. As I mention in the original introduction, the opportunity to write the book came while I was in law school, the result of my election as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. In the wake of some modest publicity, I received an advance from a publisher and went to work with the belief that the story of my family, and my efforts to understand that story, might speak in some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience, as well as the fluid state of identitythe leaps through time, the collision of cultures-that mark our modern life. Like most first-time authors, I was filled with hope and despair upon the book’s publication-hope that the book might succeed beyond my youthful dreams, despair that I had failed to say anything worth saying. The reality fell somewhere in between. The reviews were mildly favorable. People actually showed up at the readings my publisher arranged. The sales were underwhelming. And, after a few months, I went on with the business of my life, certain that my career as an author would be short-lived, but glad to have survived the process with my dignity more or less intact. I had little time for reflection over the next ten years. I ran a voter registration project in...
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