Essay Questions

Yertle the Turtle offers a pretty dark thematic foundation for a children’s story in its allegorical portrait of the rise of Hitler, but ends with a lesson absolutely appropriate for kids. What is that lesson?

Yertle is, no question, one of the most repugnant figures in kiddie lit. He almost makes the Grinch look like Linus Van Pelt. His rise to authoritarian demagogue barely existing on the south side of Satanic is disturbing and overwrought with negativity, yet the ending is remarkably upbeat, positive and kid-friendly. It is also instructive in a very easy way to convey to kids. What topples the fascistic turtle empire of Yertle? It is not an invasion by rival group of turtles. It is not even a coordinate revolution by those beneath him. Instead, it is just ones single act by the lowest member of the turtle-stacking hierarchy.

Little Mack, who dared to speak up and was rewarded for this action by having even more turtle weight pushing down upon him. The little guy who existential definition was being “only a turtle named Mack” is single-handedly responsible for bringing down a monster invested with near-absolute power. It is a lesson capable of inspiring a child to grown up one day to become the first to speak out against an untouchable member of the Hollywood power elite or to stand alone facing down a convoy of tanks or take a seat on a bus reserve only for those with a certain skin tone.

Gertrude McFuzz is a story that touches upon envy, greed, pride, gluttony, sloth and even wrath. How it can be said to also cover the missing seventh Deadly Sin, lust?

Gertrude’s envy of Lolla-Lee-Lou leads to the gluttony of gobbling up the pill-berries which inspires pride in the results: her fancy new tailfeathers. The description of the feathers include imagery that suggests an evolution from mere pride—even great pride—to something much more intense and dark, perhaps even sinful:

“All fit for a queen! What a sight to behold!
They sparkled like diamonds and gumdrops and gold!”

Jewelry, candy and gold. All items capable of producing a feverish desire for more and more that treads along an emotional spectrum capable of tipping over into an unnatural and deviant desire. Yes, the story of Gertrude McFuzz is a story that describes each of the Seven Deadly Sins, even lust. Except, in this case, the lust is not sexual attraction for another creature since that would be way out of bounds for a children’s book. The specific word choice of Seuss—when Gertrude observes that feathers are “a sight to behold” she, alone, is the only one capable of beholding that sight—indicates that the bird’s pride in her ornamental appearance has at some point crossed the line into a lust for more and more and more.