World War II literature written by the men who lived through it is justifiably famous. The experience of war stimulated the works that established the reputations of writers who would go on to enjoy long and diverse careers. Such famous names in literature as James Jones, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller and Gore Vidal all commenced their careers by transforming the wartime experience in the 1940’s into fiction. One writer often left off that list of authors with works intensely influenced by World War II is Dr. Seuss. This is likely not simply because he wrote children’s books, of course, but also because, unlike the others, he disguised the fact that the war was the very basis of the premise.
The most overtly World War II-influence story by Seuss is Yertle the Turtle. In that particular case, Seuss takes little effort to disguise the fact Yertle is a metaphorical doppelganger for Adolf Hitler. Kids won’t get it, of course, and there is probably good reason to believe that number of contemporary adult readers will fail to make the connection, but it is beyond question that Yertle the Turtle is a World War II symbolist literature, plain and simple.
Here’s where the story gets really interesting. The same can be said of Horton Hears a Who. Written a few years after Yertle., Seuss seems to have undergone an evolution in his sense of subtlety about introducing political symbolism into his children’s stories. Yertle’s story can be broadened into an indictment of aggressive authoritarianism that stretches well beyond the more limited scope of Hitler’s rise to power, but it is difficult to interpret beyond that scope. Horton Hears a Who, by contrast, is elastic enough to allow for very broad range of thematic interpretation and, indeed, it has been co-opted by both liberal and conservation factions for use an ideological propaganda. Nevertheless, Horton Hears a Who is very distinctly, at its foundation, an allegory about post-war American power following the annihilation of the Japanese empire.
“A person’s a person, not matter how small.” That is the defining line from the story and it is essential to establishing that foundation. It is not a ethnic slur against the Japanese, it simply references a basic physiological fact. As a rule, the Japanese are—on average—shorter than the American population. Japan is, undeniably, a small country than America topographically speaking. And, following the dropping of two devastating atomic bombs, the standing in the world of Japan was diminished beyond all previous possible belief in comparison to the rise of America as a superpower. Just as Godzilla climbs out of the sea from the nuclear holocaust created by American weaponry first to attack Japan only to then become its protector, so is the immense and potentially dangerous pachyderm named Horton a symbol of the need for America to engage not its superior power to destroy, but to safeguard.
Unlike the other World War II fiction mentioned earlier, the experience which Seuss brought to bear in his fiction was not from the battlefield or even gained during the war. It was instilled in the aftermath when Seuss went to Japan to make a documentary which went on to win an Oscar. It was while actually in Japan that Seuss saw for himself for the first time and with his own eyes proof that the majestically racist anti-Japanese propaganda produced during the wartime years had helped to create a scathing portrait of the country as barely more than human. Seuss discovered that the maligned enemy were simply people. And people are people, no matter how small they are conveniently made to seem when at war.
