Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Magisterská diplomová práce Erika F eldová 2020 Erika Feldová 20 20 Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies North American Culture Studies Erika Feldová From the War Propagandist to the Children’s Book Author: The Many Faces of Dr. Seuss Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A, Ph. D. 2020 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my family and friends for supporting me throughout my studies. I could never be able to do this without you all. I would also like to thank Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A, Ph. D. for all of his help and feedback. Erika Feldová 1 Contents From The War Propagandist to the Children’s Book Author: the Many Faces of Dr. Seuss............................................................................................................................. 0 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 2 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 5 Geisel and Dr. Seuss ..................................................................................................... 7 Early years ................................................................................................................... 7 Dartmouth and Oxford ................................................................................................ 9 Back Home ................................................................................................................ 10 New York PM and War propaganda work ................................................................ 12 New York PM Cartoons ........................................................................................... 17 Racist Dr. Seuss ....................................................................................................... 25 Dr. Seuss actually goes to war ............................................................................... 36 Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ....................................................... 47 Japan after the war ................................................................................................... 47 Horton after Second World War ................................................................................. 52 Trip to Japan .............................................................................................................. 52 Horton hears a Japan! .............................................................................................. 54 Children’s author image and criticism of social issues ........................................... 63 Cold War .................................................................................................................... 65 The good Dr. Seuss .................................................................................................. 67 Criticism of social issues in Dr. Seuss’s children’s books .................................. 69 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 73 Erika Feldová 2 From the War Propagandist to the Children’s Book Author: The Many Faces of Dr. Seuss Introduction Dr. Seuss was a very well-known writer who was and still is famous for his children’s books, his original characters, words, rhymes, and tempo. He also played a big part in educating American children in the past seven decades but that is not the only thing Dr. Seuss is known for. As Donald E. Pease says in the preface of his biography about Theodor Seuss Geisel Theodor Seuss Geisel was an advertisement agency artist, animator, producer and director of animated cartoons, caricaturist, playwright, short story writer, documentary filmmaker, lyricist, teacher, political cartoonist, and editor and author of children’s books. (Pease 9) and that Dr. Seuss’s children’s books have enjoyed phenomenal commercial and critical success. Dr. Seuss’s works, which have changed the way children everywhere learn how to read, have been translated into fifteen languages. More than 200 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. Six books have been published posthumously. In 2001 Publishers Weekly listed fourteen Dr. Seuss books among the top one hundred all-time best-selling hardcover children’s books. Green Eggs and Ham placed fourth on the list, and The Cat in the Hat ranked ninth. (Pease 9) This is quite an impressive collection of life achievements but because I did not grow up in the U.S., I actually never read Dr. Seuss’s book or even knew his name before. I saw How the grinch stole Christmas movie starring Jim Carrey when I Erika Feldová 3 was small, and I really loved The Lorax movie when I got older, but I did not have a reason to search for the author of the original stories. My relationship with Dr. Seuss actually started with my bachelor thesis which was about American influence on Japanese Democracy during the Occupation of Japan. Throughout the research for my bachelor thesis, I stumbled upon the US war propaganda cartoons. At that time, I was trying to understand how the opinion of average American about the Japan was formatted before, during, and after the war. These cartoons were drawn in a really specific style and I knew that I saw the work of this artist before, but where? I looked up the artist, but I never heard the name Theodor Seuss Geisel before, so I did not connect him to the loved children’s author. And who would? Eventually, I have found an article that talked about Geisel’s participation in the Second World War and his racist anti-Japanese cartoons. That’s when I have realized that we indeed speak about Dr. Seuss. However, with this realization came even more questions. How can somebody who is famous for writing inspiring stories for children, who is known for his goofy rhymes and remembered like the “good Dr. Seuss”, how can this man be the same man who in Second World War created racist war cartoons? How can somebody who wrote a book with moral like “A person is a person no matter how small” be the same one who ten years before depicted every American Japanese as a terrorist in his PM cartoons? War changes people but was this change simply psychological or was it simply his literary evolution as he became a children’s book writer? Did Dr. Seuss write the Horton Hears a Who! out of regret which came from his racist contribution to the American war propaganda or maybe the regret over the thousands of lives lost to the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? And how this war experience influenced the author in his later writing and his “good” image? How much Erika Feldová 4 political situation after the war impacted Dr. Seuss and how his personal experiences changed his views are the questions that I would like to answer in my thesis. This thesis is divided into three main themes. Firstly, I’m going to describe Geisel’s early life because it will later become my main argumentation for the psychological transformation. The focus of this part will be mostly on how his German heritage influenced his early years as the United States went to the First World War and how this experience effected Geisel’s work. Then I’m going to concentrate on his time in New York PM and other war activities in which Dr. Seuss took part, most importantly the Private SNAFU series and war films he helped to create. And lastly, I am going to analyze the Horton Hears a Who! book and look for the differences in Geisel’s approach to equality and xenophobia in this children’s book and the New York PM cartoons. The reason I’ve chosen this book specifically is that the Whos in the story were modeled on Japanese children or perhaps population, written after Geisel’s return from Japan and because it deals with the equality theme. I will use the names Geisel and Dr. Seuss interchangeably in this thesis just so it would not become too repetitive. Also, the pages in the book Horton Hears Who! are not numbered and I am going to cite from this book a lot so for the purpose of this thesis, I will number them accordingly to my scan of the book which means number one will start with the book cover. My last technical issue is with the book Dr. Seuss Goes to War: the World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel which, as name suggests, contains a collection of Geisel’s war cartoon and also Richard H. Minear’s commentary. To distinguish when I am citing Geisel’s cartoons and when I cite Minear’s text I will use for in-text citation: (Seuss, “goes to war” page number) and (Minear page number) accordingly. Similarly, for Geisel’s interview in 1980 called Erika Feldová 5 THEODOR GEISEL: The Good Dr. Seuss I am going to use: (Geisel, “Good Dr. Seuss” page number) for Geisel’s part and (Cott page number) for the interviewer part. Methodology My methodological approach was qualitative with the focus on the analysis of existing books, cartoons, data and also the comparison of Geisel’s war publications and the after-war period with the focus on two books: Horton Hears a Who! (1954) and the Dr. Seuss Goes to War: the World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel (2001). This publication is a collection of Geisel’s