Dr. Seuss
By: Fonta • Research Paper • 1,164 Words • November 12, 2009 • 1,602 Views
Essay title: Dr. Seuss
How can a man reach an audience of millions both young and old with a moral purpose
that entangles itself with a hidden symbolic meaning that appeals to the already matured mind?
The answer to this question that proved brilliant and adored by hundreds of millions around the
globe was none other than beginner books for children! The man to master this marveled line of
literature proved a man by the name Theodor Seuss Geisel, otherwise known by his ongoing fans
as Dr. Seuss. According to NPR's Weekend Edition, "Dr. Seuss." by Steven Stark, Theodor
Geisel has accounted for four-hundred million books sold during his life time. Can you even
fathom the number of lives touched by these books, I can not! The writing styles of Dr. Seuss
have become the highest noted in the area of beginner books for children while captivating the
minds of parents who helped their children with these books. Who was the man behind these
fabulous writings and what could have inspired this fascinating penmanship.
Theodor Seuss Geisel entered this world in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts where his
father and grandfather were both brewmasters. According to an online article, "All About Dr.
Seuss" Theodor's mother use to rhyme him to sleep and proved the source for Seuss' natural
rhyming abilities. Ted left for Dartmouth College as a teenager where he gained his first editing
job of the Dartmouth humor magazine called the Jack-O-Lantern. Ted lost this job when he and
his friends were caught throwing a drinking party which, during the time, proved highly illegal
due to the prohibition laws passed during World War I. Also, according to "All About Seuss"
this proved the first time Ted used the "Seuss" pseudonym, which was both Ted's middle name
and his mother's maiden name, to sneak in articles to the school magazine. After finishing his
studies at Dartmouth, Ted went on to Oxford to become a college professor. Ted soon became
bored with his studies at the college and decided to go on tour in Europe with his new wife
Helen Palmer, who also became a children's book writer and book editor. After their travels Ted
became a cartoonist for the Evening Post where he drew his first cartoons.
Ted used cartoons as a form of imagery for his younger readers in his line of Dr. Seuss
books. These cartoons were one of the main factors that help to make him the recognized
children author that he has become today. Each page in his line of Dr. Seuss books are filled
with cartoon characters that enchanted the developing minds of their audience and made the
children focus in on what they might have otherwise had a hard time of understanding. This also
helped the children to anticipate and crave the next page of each book. Now, looking back this
form of entertainment and education seems like such a simple idea, but at the date of publishing,
using these cartoon characters to keep the minds of an audience intone with the underlying moral
meaning of the book proved a new and revolutionary breakthrough.
One factor that made Dr. Seuss books acceptable and adored by the parents who bought
the books for their children proved none other than the moral concepts and life lessons parents
were already desperately trying to incase inside their