The Cat in the Hat Essay Questions

After the end of The Cat in the Hat, The Mother asks the children how they spent their day. Instead of showing his answer to Mother’s inquiry, the boy poses a question to the audience: "What would YOU do/If your mother asked YOU?" (306-307). What is the purpose of this ambiguous ending? How does the boy’s deferral to the audience relate to the book’s portrayal of authority and social order?

By not including the children's response to Mother’s question, Seuss encourages readers to put themselves in the children’s position and ponder a common dilemma young children face—the desire to be honest vs. the desire not to be punished by a figure of authority. The capitalized "YOU" and "SHOULD" draws extra, confrontational attention to readers, and this implication of the audience makes reading into an act requiring active participation by the reader. In doing so, Seuss defies the conventions of the Dick and Jane primers, which didactically model how children should behave. The ending of The Cat of the Hat rejects the common notion that children must passively consume the prevailing “message” of a work of literature—rather, Seuss suggests, they should think critically and draw their own conclusions about the text. Through this, Seuss expands the theme of questioning authority outside of the book and into "real life."

There is a shift in the Cat's character toward the end of The Cat in the Hat. How does the Cat’s evolution relate to the book’s depiction of chaos and order?

For most of the book, the narrator depicts the Cat as a mischievous rule-breaker who ignores the standard rules enforced in the prototypical American household: that children must express wariness toward outsiders, comply with authority, and keep the home as neat and pristine as possible. With his balancing act and unleashing of the Things, the Cat fuels madness and instability into the home—he is chaos incarnate. However, his later cleanup effort complicates this characterization. In claiming, "I always pick up all my playthings," the Cat shows his respect for one of the most fundamental domestic rules: cleaning up after one’s mess (179). As such, the Cat emerges as a paradoxical character who both rebels against and abides by order. This shift in characterization shows how chaos and order can and should coincide with an individual. We should question and break some rules to discover our values and individuality, but we also must comply with some social norms to meaningfully contribute to society. In other words, we should challenge the status quo, but not stray too far from it.