Walt Disney: Defense and Discovery of the New

When we see “Walt Disney Presents” appear magically on the hyper-blue movie screen, as we so often do, it’s easy to forget that Walt Disney is the name of a man. Walt Disney once said, “Let us never forget that it all started with a mouse.” However, it did not start with a mouse, but long before a mouse with a man, a man who was once a boy, for while Disney Studios was not signed and running, Walt’s mind was always wildly running. Throughout Walt’s life, how did he become the artist that he did? What made Disney Studios great while Walt was alive? Even after Walt died, Disney Studios went on. Continuing fifty years, Disney changed significantly from the time Walt died. Has Disney fared well since his death? Will animation ever be as brilliant as when he was alive? Surely there will be others ready to step up and make genius film, by both exploring technology for animation and telling stories in a way that they move and excited audiences everywhere.

Walt Disney’s Life


The day Walt Disney was born, animated feature films didn’t exist. By the day Walt Disney died, animated film would never be the same. As a child, Walt was a budding artist, who knew what he wanted to be—and was determined to be it. Embarking on a precarious investment, Walt and his brother began Walt Disney Studios, and created the world-famous Mickey Mouse. Arguably his most genius achievement, Show White revolutionized animated films for years to come. Before Disney, animation was primitive. Attempts at animation date back to 1892 in France when a young experiment used five-hundred pictures in a machine much like the modern projector. By the time Disney was entering the animation business, it had evolved by leaps and bounds, but Walt was yet to make his mark on it. He was a born artist-- an intuitive story teller and an inventive animator.

When Walter Elias Disney arrived in the world on December 5 of 1901, who could say that he would one day be one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century? After living in Chicago until Walt was four, his father, Elias Disney, decided to move his family—his wife Flora, his three sons, and his young daughter—to a farm in Marceline, Missouri. As a young boy, Walt was responsible for taking care of many of the animals on the farm. Walt adored animals. Taking some teasing for his affections, Walt named all of the animals and treated them as friends, even coaxing the biggest hen, Martha, to come when he called and lay an egg right in his hand. Although the family was poor, Walt always found creative and cheap, if sometimes unsatisfactory ways of express his art. Excitedly discovering a barrel of fresh tar by the house, Walt invited his little sister, Ruth, to do some painting with him—their own version of graffiti. Soon one of the house’s outside walls was covered in zigzags and doodles. It surprised Walt immensely to fine that the tar would not come off. After this ordeal, Walt was more careful with his drawing medium, and he stuck to toilet paper and bits of wrapping paper. Together with his love of animals and drawing, Walt determined the thing he wanted to be—a cartoonist. And what a cartoonist he would be! His drawings were always admired—gaining him free haircuts from the barber and sweets money from friends and neighbors. One year, for Ruth’s birthday, he made her a little book of drawings that looked like a moving picture when you turned the pages quickly. Years later, at eighteen, while driving a Red Cross ambulance in Europe in World War II, he still kept drawing, covering his truck with cartoon drawings. One of the only places Walt’s imaginative artistry was not appreciated was at school. When the teacher instructed them to draw a pot of flowers, Walt liberally added faces and bodies to each bud, causing his teacher much dismay. However, Walt stuck close to his drawing—his way. Perhaps not even Walt knew the things he would achieve, but he didn’t have to know—he was drawn to art like a bird to the sky, and he was about to take flight.

Animation caught Walt’s attention and he never caught it back. He watched the cartoons of the day, readily believing he could do better. Reading books on animation, studying different animators, and saving money for his own film equipment, Walt worked tirelessly to start his career. After many failed attempts to make it in Kansas animation studios, he moved west to Hollywood with unfailing hope, even after his failure. Looking back, Walt later said, “I’d failed, but I’d learned a lot out of that. I think it’s important to have a good, hard, failure when you’re young.” Through a series of fortunate events, Walt started his own animation studio with his older brother Roy, who was always his closest friend and companion. Next came the mouse. Only five years later, Walt created Mickey Mouse. Originally, Walt wished to name him Mortimer, but his wife, Lily, objected, suggesting that it sounded too serious. So they named him Mickey. While Mickey’s first two cartoons didn’t cause much stir, this third cartoon, Steam Boat Willie, was an instant hit. This was strongly due to the newly discovered phenomenon of synchronized sound . Silent films were no longer the only option. Scoffing at the new technique, many movie makers believed that this was only an overrated fad, but Walt knew otherwise—he jumped at the new opportunity, recognizing the options it offered for his animation studio. First testing synchronized sound out on the Mickey Mouse cartoon Steam Boat Willie, Walt worked hard to create a fresh exciting new cartoon, even using his own voice for Mickey Mouse. In this achievement, Walt proved his genius by two things, firstly, that he was a great storyteller. He later explained, "I honestly feel that the heart of our organization is the story department. We must have good stories—we must have them well worked out—we must have people in there who can not only think up ideas, but who can carry them through…to completion."

And second, he was always fighting to develop technology—trying new things, taking risks, he raised the bar for animation by challenging his artists to do better. This was the basis for Disney Studios—and it gave Walt a new idea a crazy risky idea for a full length, full sound, Technicolor, Cartoon—Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. By 1934, the Disney staff had grown, in six years, from 6 to 187, and Walt Disney was about to make animation history.

Growing tired of only making short cartoons, Walt devised and presented to his team the radical idea of creating a full length animated feature. He knew what story he wanted to make. When Walt was fourteen, he had seen the silent movie of Snow White, starring Marguerite Clark. It was Walt’s first vivid memory of the movies, and he never forgot it. Inviting his animators into the sound studio one night, Walt told the story. Under a bare light bulb with his animators in a semicircle around him, he acted out each part in its turn, Snow White, The evil Queen, and each of the seven comical dwarves. At the end of the storytelling, the animators had tears in their eyes. Walt had instilled in them his excitement for the project and they began without delay. One of the biggest challenges Walt wanted to overcome was to figure out a method of making the cartoons more life-like and fluid.—they had no depth. Gradually, Walt began to develop a new camera called the “multi-plane camera.” A second problem surfaced when Walt realized that an animated feature running an hour-and-a-half would require 300 drawings total—an enormous amount! Walt informed the head of the Disney art school, and soon the studio was bursting with new talent. So much artistic and financial effort went into the film, and everyone wondered what the response would be at its release. Financially, the movie was an enormous endeavor. When Walt had announced his idea to Roy, who was the head of business, Roy was extremely apprehensive that they would have enough money to finish the film. Walt initial budget for the movie was $500,000, an amount that set Roy’s knees to buckling. It turned out that this estimate was absurdly low, and it turned out that the film would cost 3 times the original estimate. Before its release, people called it “Disney’s Folly” and predicted that it would send the studio into bankruptcy. However, Walt and his artists kept their faith in the picture. When it premiered on December 21, 1937, all the Hollywood big-wigs showed up to see the film. At the “Happily Ever After”, the audience stood and cheered. Years later, Walt reminisced,

All the Hollywood brass turned out for my cartoon! That was the thing. And it went way back to when I first came out here and I went to my first premiere. I’d never seen one in my life. I saw all these Hollywood celebrities comin’ in and I just had a funny feeling. I just hoped that someday they’d be going in to a premiere of a cartoon. Because people would depreciate the cartoon. You know, they’d kind of look down.

All their hard work and faith paid off. Audiences everywhere were enthralled. Animated film would never be the same.

Certainly Disney was an extraordinary man. In some ways, though, he started off seemingly ordinary, as a poor hard working creative boy, who drew on toilet paper. Childhood was an important time in Walt’s life as an artist. Another significant point in Walt’s artistic life was the distinct start of his career with Disney studios, bringing the world’s attention to Walt Disney like lightning. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves caused audiences and critics to expect great things from Walt time after time. And for many years, Disney delivered. Most importantly, Walt was willing to risk failure. When he first started off as an animator, he experienced failure repeatedly, but he didn’t let it stop him.He was not a cautious man, and his prerogative to step out into the unexplored was where his genius lay. What would happen to Disney Studios after Walt, the maker himself, died? When Walt Disney died one little boy remembers thinking in horror, “There will be no more Pinocchio!” Surely, he was not alone in this fear. The time between Snow White’s success and Walt’s death was filled with much success, change, and of course, Walt’s brilliant, if crazy, ideas. Expanding their medium, Disney Studios also began making live action films which were much cheaper than animated films. In this way, Disney kept their piggy bank full, at least full enough to supply funding for each next endeavor. One of these endeavors was the design, building, and opening of a completely Disney themed amusement park, Disney Land, which turned out to be a completely unprecedented and unexpected success. As always, Walt knew they could improve on Disney Land, and he began plans for Disney World. Sadly, Walt never saw the park open, before he passed away. It was his last great project. What happened after that? The time after Walt’s death is marked by three distinct periods. The first, lasting a strangling twenty years, was Disney’s decline, when they seem at a loss without they’re determined leader. Thankfully, they found their footing again and made a run of movies marking the Disney Renaissance. Thirdly, though not strictly a period of time, was the birth of Pixar Studios in 1995, the heart of animation moviemaking today.

Disney Studios after Walt Disney’s Death

Continually changing, moving, and growing, Disney studios, powered by Walt’s passion and his team’s enthusiasm and skill, had never slowed down, but had kept making better and better films with each year of artistic discoveries. But then, as in any of the Disney movies, the villain arrived in the form of lung cancer. Struggling with his health for years, Walt finally had to deal with his troubles. The doctors determined to remove the lung immediately when they found a walnut-sized tumor in one of Walt’s lungs. After two weeks recovering from the surgery, Walt was released from the hospital, but with a greatly pessimistic prognosis predicting Walt would live only two years more, perhaps less. Although Walt returned to the Studio the next day, by the end of the month he was back in the hospital. He died on December 16, 1966. But Disney Studios had to continue. In a statement to the public Roy Disney promised: "As President and Chairman of the Board of Walt Disney Productions,I want to assure the public, our stockholders, and each of our more than four thousand employees that we will continue to operate Walt Disney’s company in the way that he has established and guided it."

However, although Roy desired to hold to his brother’s standards and creative genius for animation, without Walt’s drive for the new and greater, Disney declined into a lower vein of movie making. Unfortunately, some of this was due to the new staff at Disney Studios, including Walt’s son in-law, Ron Miller, the new executive producer. Ron Miller was a cautious man, not a suitable trait for a man in the movies, and he began to turn out the same movies year after year. Many of the films were made for the masses, with safe stories and cookie-cutter characters. Trying to fine their footing with their genius leader gone, Disney lost some of Walt’s vigor and philosophy, but they would rise again, if after twenty years.

It wasn’t until 1989 that Disney surfaced, with the exciting, fun, and exotic feature, The Little Mermaid. Interestingly, it was the first Disney fairy tale feature created since Walt’s death. In one way, Disney had returned to home plate with this retelling, and yet they found a way to make this new feature totally unique from the others. Disney knew its audience again. They had changed, but Disney Studios was back on track. Following The Little Mermaid, were a few mediocre films, but it had breathed life back into Disney Studios. It was the beginning of the Disney Renaissance. Following The Little Mermaid were the now-classic Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Lion King, Mulan, and Tarzan. Truly one of the best Disney films ever created, Beauty and the Beast was even nominated for Best Picture of the Year at the Academy Awards, the first ever to receive such and honor. Beauty and the Beast also won Academy Awards for “Best Score” and “Original Song”. For years following, Disney became known for their capturing music, which brought these films to life. Monopolizing the Academy Awards for both “Best Score” and “Best Original Song”, Disney won for not only Beauty and the Beast, but also The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Pocahontas. After the days of the Disney Renaissance were over, Disney hit another ten year dry spot, returning the predictable formula following films of before. In 2010, Tangled, the tale of Rapunzel was released, recapturing audiences with some the most lovable comical character from Disney in a very long time, and it is certainly in the ranks of the great Disney films. Could this be the return of Disney? Since Walt’s death Disney Studios has had its ups and downs, producing films Walt would have been proud of—Beauty and the Beast, Tangled—and some that would have made him blush—The Black Cauldron, Oliver and Company.

Although Disney did make a comeback with some great films, the studio today who is truly upholding Walt’s philosophy of movie making, is Pixar Studios. Leaving animation job at Disney in 1984, John Lasseter joined George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, in his special effects computer group, which would later become Pixar. Over the next ten years, Pixar made commercials and short films much like the way Walt Disney had started. Their first feature film, Toy Story, released in 1995, was altogether groundbreaking—the first fully computer animated feature film. Pixar Studios pushed the envelope of art in technology and storytelling, which were the two things Walt Disney himself strived towards. Unforgettably, the characters of Toy Story were ones that children of the generation would come to call an important part of their childhood. It was pure genius, creating a film about characters that each child and adult knew well, Mrs. Potato Head, a Piggy Bank, a plastic Dinosaur, a space ranger, a cowboy doll, and one-hundred plastic, green, army men. With each successive film, Pixar has driven to get better and better—and they’ve done it. Pixar is also known for their clever short films. Before each of their feature films, a new animated short is played. In 2006, when Pixar had already released six fantastic films, the Walt Disney Company bought the studio. Telling the story of a grumpy old man flying his house to Paradise Falls by balloons, Up took its place as Pixar’s tenth animated feature, and was nominated for Best Picture of the year at the Academy Awards, only the second after Beauty and the Beast ever to be chosen. Significantly making its mark on movie making over the last sixteen years, Pixar would certainly have made Walt proud by their incentive to push their films to their best. They are the best story tellers in the movie making business, the most determined technologists in animation, and if Walt Disney were alive today he would be working right alongside them.

Although its founder, Walt Disney died, Disney Studios “kept moving forward” as they say in Disney’s Meet the Robinsons. After twenty years of uninspired movies after Walt’s Death, they found their footing again. The Disney Renaissance truly contained a few unforgettable movies, which spurred animation on in their technology and their stories. Undoubtedly , however, Pixar studios, the animation rookie, has not only held their own with Disney’s best movies, but have surpassed Disney Studios, in only ten years, by changing the way animation is produced and telling stories, as well as any Studio in history. Making their mark, as two distinctly important times, Disney Studios experienced failure and fortune after Walt’s death. Although the failure seemed to teach them and help them recreate a fresh feeling to their movies again, Disney Studios sadly slid back into a predictable method again, leaning on the cautious and sellable. Most significantly, since Walt Disney’s death, is the work of Pixar, who, like Walt Disney, have forced art farther, pushing, driving, and refining their work until it is gleaming gold. The thread of genius that Walt Disney Studios started may have dulled, but in art there’s always someone, like Pixar, to step up and creating things like never before—trying new techniques, taking new risks, and telling important truthful stories.

Surely, Walt Disney established a new medium during his life time, determining to make movies that young and old could both enjoy. The work he did during his life was novel and brilliant, partly because he was the first to take animation to the level that he did. Since then, Disney has always been the animation to which all other animation is measured. During his lifetime, Disney was primarily the mastermind behind the work, but after Disney died the Studio and the animators still went on. When Walt Disney died, it seemed that the first epoch of animation had ended. Thinking that they had the animation equation down, Disney studios attempted to copy what Walt had always done, but they failed because Walt had always been trying new things, experimenting, and testing the waters. He had never tried to do the same thing twice, unless to improve upon it. However, great movies did come from Disney Studios after Walt’s death--many mediocre movies, but a couple of gems. Presently, animation is at its zenith with Disney’s Pixar Studios, who hasn’t had a flop yet. One crucial thing that Walt Disney understood about animation was that it was an important medium that could do things that other art forms couldn’t—it wasn’t a lower form of moviemaking—or simple and cheap for children, as some might think. An animated film requires an enormous amount of people and a significant amount of money, as Walt discovered on his first feature, Snow White. Proof to this was the very first premiere of an animated movie, when an audience of adults cried at Snow White’s death and stood cheering at her victory. And recently, in the Pixar films Up and Toy Story 3, audiences everywhere laughed and cried time after time. Adults who watched Up cried when Mr. Fredrickson arrives in Paradise Falls in his house of flying balloons, and when Woody and Buzz wave goodbye to Andy at the end of Toy Story 3—there was a similar jolt in every stomach. Because it’s certainly not just a kid’s story—not just an animated cartoon. These scenes in these two movies could never have been done so effectively in any other style of moviemaking. Walt understood this, and from the beginning animated movies were a risky business, but he saw something invaluable in them. More than once he risked bankruptcy in the defense and discovery of the new, and mostly importantly, Walt believed that the Story Department was the Heart of his studio, and by combining great stories and technically exceptional animation, Disney is one of the most brilliant movie studios of all time.

Bibliography

Ford, Barbara. Walt Disney. New York: Walker and Company, 1989.

Simon, Charnan. Walt Disney: Creator of Magical Worlds. New York: Children’s Press, 1999.Thomas, Bob. Walt Disney: An American Original. New York: The Walt Disney Company, 1994.

“Synchronized Sound.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 2 Jan.2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sync_sound

A Master Storyteller

“The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we in the house
All that cold, cold, wet day.
I sat there with Sally.
We sat there, we two.
And I said, ‘How I wish We had something to do!’
Too wet to go out
And too cold to play ball.
So we sat in the house.
We did nothing at all.
So all we could do was to
Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit!
And we did not like it.
Not one little bit.
And then
Something went BUMP!
How that bump made us jump!
We looked!
Then we saw him step in on the mat!
We looked!
And we saw him!
The Cat in the Hat!”

Since 1957, these words that Dr. Seuss wrote have been read by millions of people around the world. Putting these words to paper and publishing them, Dr. Seuss had no idea that it would be one of the best loved and cherished children’s stories the world has ever seen. Dr. Seuss, whose first page of his book The Cat in the Hat was just read, is one of the most renowned children’s authors of all time. There are so many questions about him. Challenged to find out about Dr. Seuss, biographers all over America try desperately to find where he got inspiration or what he believed about life. In his books, does Dr. Seuss insert his own experiences or are they just nonsense stories? Some say he does and others say he doesn’t—sometimes people see things that aren’t there. So why did he write the stories he did?

Who is Dr. Seuss? The legendary children’s writer seems to some as though he popped out of the ground—and maybe he did—for all they know. He probably encouraged this idea. Raised creatively by his parents, Seuss, whose first name was Theodore, was telling stories as soon as he could talk. When he left for college he planned to be an English teacher, but soon found much more enjoyment in telling tales and making people laugh with his comics. Suddenly meeting and marrying the women of his dreams after only a short relationship, Dr. Seuss found what would be his one counselor whom he trusted completely. Though not very much information is known about this famous story teller, he had a very interesting life.

On March second, 1904, Theodore Seuss Geisel was born to Theodore and Henrietta Seuss in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was always called Ted. While growing up, he was always encouraged by his mother to draw continuously. She even allowed him to draw on the walls of his room and the walls of the attic. Critically watching his son draw, Ted’s father believed that his drawings were too cartoony and that they didn’t truly represent what real animals and people look like. Reading constantly, Ted’s favorite book was called The Hole Book, in which there is a story—all in rhythm—about a boy who shoots a gun and it ricochets off everything in his house until it is stopped by a very hard cake. He also may have been inspired by his books from his childhood called More Beasts for Worse Children[i] where he seems to steal some creatures from.

When Ted graduated from high school, he immediately headed to Dartmouth College to work on a liberal arts degree. Quickly submitting comics to the humor magazine “Jack-O-Lantern,” which he soon became editor of, he quickly found success. He much preferred it to studying. In his senior year, he was caught partying the night before Easter with some friends and was fired from his chief editor position in the magazine, the only part of Dartmouth he actually enjoyed. However he still submitted comics as he finished off the year under a new alias, Dr. Seuss. Graduating from Dartmouth, Ted decided to attend Oxford to expand his studies, but when he arrived he couldn’t stand the English snobbery or the bland food in England. One day while Ted was sitting in class doodling during a lecture, a girl named Helen Palmer looked over his shoulder and said, “If I could do that, I wouldn’t be sitting in this class.” A few months later they were married and he had taken her advice and moved back to America to try and make a career of writing and drawing instead of continuing with college.

Moving back to America, Ted immediately set out to start a career. He began by advertising. Promptly finding an advertising job with the bug killing company FLIT, he successfully rose to the challenge. As soon as he started, Flit became famous for the slogan “Quick Henry the Flit” that Ted gave it, accompanied by his wild drawings of people battling and killing humanized insects with Flit. In 1937 Ted published his first children’s book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, which was an immediate success. The more children’s stories he wrote, the more popular he became. Jokingly challenging Ted to a bet, William Spaulding, the director of Houghton Mifflin’s educational division of Children’s books, said that he didn’t believe Seuss could write a book for new readers that contained exactly 225 words out of a possible 348 beginner’s word list and create a book that children would like. Ted rose to the challenge. On March 18, 1957, Dr. Seuss, who not only met all the requirements of the bet, published The Cat in the Hat, and its popularity spread by word of mouth immediately. Kids all over America were begging their parents to buy Ted’s book, which was the most fun book they had ever read.

Telling stories from a young age, Dr. Seuss always needed one thing—an audience—a listener to share and critique his ideas and drawings with. When he was a young boy, this role was usually filled by his mother; she listened, criticized, laughed at, and most importantly, encouraged the stories he told. This is where his genius lies. Suddenly finding himself void of listeners when he went off to college, Ted—who did not give up easily—found a new audience in the readers of the comic paper Jack-O-Lantern which he became the editor of until he left for [ii]Oxford where his new listener was his soon to be wife, Helen Palmer. She would become his only trusted adviser for the next forty years. In his years of writing he was always asked, “You write children’s books, but why don’t you have any kids of your own?” and his answer was “You make ‘em, I’ll entertain ‘em.” Dr. Seuss did not just love telling stories, he loved telling stories to people.

Curiously searching for where Dr. Seuss inspiration came from, people were always asking him where he pulled his ideas from. Whenever he was asked, his stock answer for over a decade was usually:

“I get my ideas my ideas in Switzerland near the Forka pass[iii]. There is a little town called Gletch, and two thousand feet up above Gletch there is a smaller hamlet called Uber Gletch. I go there on the fourth of August every summer to get my cuckoo clock repaired. While the cuckoo is in the hospital, I wander around and talk to the people in the streets. They are very strange people, and I get my ideas from them.”

Elaborating his story of Horton in the tree, his final version of the tale was that late one night two pieces of paper blew through the window and landed on the table on top of each other—an elephant on a tree. As long as it was a good story—and it always was--he didn’t care if it was historically correct. He also often added in political and moral ideas and his own experiences into his stories which have sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, morals.

When Seuss was at a party once, another writer told him that it was a pity that Seuss never wrote anything political. Unexpectedly receiving a package from Seuss a month later, the same writer curiously opened it to find a copy of Marvin K. Moody Wiill You Please Go Now, which had the name Marvin crossed out and replaced with Richard N. Nixon. During World War II, he also did many comics for the war. In his book Yertle the Turtle, Seuss based Yertle, the ruthless power hungry king of the turtles, off of Hitler. His most obviously political book, however, is The Butter Battle Book. Living on either side of a wall, the zooks on one side only eat their bread butter side up, while the zooks on the other side eat their bread butter side down. In the end of the book, both sides are poised to bomb the other side into oblivion over a small political matter of breakfast food.

When Dr. Seuss wrote, he always pulled things from his past or present life. In his first book, he used Mulberry[iv] Street, which was a street he lived a few blocks away from and walked on quite often as a child. Groggily looking in the mirror one winter morning, Seuss said that he had gradually become a very “grinchy”[v] person, and so he wrote—with great deliberation--what is now one of the most famous Christmas stories in the world, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His most famous character shows him best. Dr. Seuss always said he had a soft spot for cats, and then came The Cat in the Hat. Some say that Seuss wasn’t creating a character; he was just tweaking and exaggerating himself with his tall lanky figure, charming smile, and ability to make people laugh.

 Although Dr. Seuss loved to slip and sneak morals into his stories, some people have gone too far in analyzing his work. In The Cat in the Hat, the bathtub rings, which are spread around the house, were wrongly accused of being a protest to against the spread of the red menace. When asked about these analyses, Dr. Seuss said, “I think they’re a waste of time…. For example, they’ll take a book of mine that has one color in it and talk about my great sensitivity in handling that color and why I chose that color, when the fact is that Bennett Cerf called me up one morning and said, ‘We’re having a bit of a financial problem, so cut down your colors.’” Reading How the Grinch stole Christmas, many people came to totally misunderstand Seuss and think that he did not believe in turning his famous and lovable characters into consumer goods. This is not true. Completely open to the idea of making money, as Charles D. Cohen says in his book The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, “Dr. Seuss had no problems milking his characters for everything they were worth.” Some people just don’t understand the way he puts in his morals.

Quietly slipping in morals throughout his books, Dr. Seuss has created many of the well-known sayings today, such as “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” In the Sneetches, he spoke about equality, in The Lorax he talked about the environment, and in Horton and the Egg he undertones about keeping promises. Writing his stories first and letting the morals come naturally, Dr. Seuss, who hated when a story was written around a moral, knew from his own experience as a kid that kids can easily spot a moral a mile off, and that it immediately strips the story of all its fun. When he wrote, his beliefs and experiences just seeped through his brain and landed on the paper amidst the tale he was spinning, whether it was political or just a regular memories. He had very strong beliefs on certain subjects.

Subtly slipping in his ideas, Dr. Seuss had a very sly way of stating what he thought about things. Attending the colleges and having the opportunities he did definitely affected his book writing later on in life. Throughout his marriage, his wife, who was always there to hear what he had to say on everything, was always ready to give her opinion. Whenever he told stories he always had an audience, whether it was millions of people across America, his mother, his wife, or a stranger passing on the street. He loved telling people stories. His most important feature was how he brought his life, his ideas, his views, and his words together to create excitingly wonderful stories that people love and will love for ever. Dr. Seuss was a master story teller.

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[i] More Beasts for worse children was a book of stories written by Hilaire Belloc, to scare naughty children into listening to their parents

[ii] Oxford: a famous college in England

[iii] Forka pass: is a high mountain pass in the Swiss Alps connecting Gletsch

[iv] Mulberry Street: a thoroughfare in Manhattan New York.

[v] Grinchy: based off the character of the Grinch, who did not like Christmas

Bibliography:

Cohen, D. Cohen. The Seuss The Whole Seuss And Nothing But The Seuss. New York: Random House, 2004

Pease, Donald E. Theodore Seuss Geisel. Oxford: University Press,2010.

Weidt, Maryann N. Oh, The Places He Went.  Minneapolis, Carolrhoda books, Inc.. 

The Man Who Never Grew Up

In America, everyone has heard of the story of Peter Pan. Silently flying off to Neverland one night with a strange boy named Peter Pan, Wendy and her brothers arrive and have many adventures, bravely battling pirates and Indians. Returning home, Wendy and her brothers grow up, while Peter Pan, who stays in Neverland remains a boy forever. This incredible story was written by a man named James Mathew Barrie. As he drew inspiration from many of the people he interacted with, J.M. Barrie formed the great story of the boy who wouldn’t grow up. Some of his most interesting times were his childhood, his time with the Davies, and the making of Peter Pan. This is his story.

In year 1860, James Mathew Barrie was born in a small weaving town called Kirriemuir. Although his family didn’t have much, they were not exactly poor. His father was a successful weaver, while his mother stayed at home with the eight kids. Leaving home at age eight, J.M. Barrie went to Glasgow academy and was looked after by his older brother and sister, who worked at the school. Easily passing exams with flying colors, he then attended Humphreys academy at age thirteen. When he was sixteen he wrote his first play, and started a drama club, which caused much trouble, because not all of the plays had up standing morals, and was looked down upon by the clergyman on the school governing board. After graduating he immediately started writing plays and became a well-known and well respected author in a city which was, much larger than where he grew up.

When he was thirty-one J.M. Barrie fell in love with the pretty young actress, Mary Ansell, who starred in one of his plays, and they got married. In 1897 an extraordinary thing happened--he met the Davies family. Meeting Mrs. Silvia Davies at a dinner party, Barrie was instantly charmed by her beauty and how she would hide sweets in her silk reticule and say, “They are for Peter.” It was not until almost a year later that he met the Davies again. Daily walking in the park, J.M. Barrie often noticed the two little boys wearing red berets, as they walked with the nurse, who was pushing a baby. On one sunny morning, he started talking to the boys because they wanted to play with his dog, Porthos, and he learned that they were part of the Davies family. They were George and Jack Davies. Immediately, J.M. Barrie and the Davies boys became completely inseparable as they met at the park day after day, and J.M. Barrie would often go home with them and play make believe and tell stories until their bedtime, not coming home to his wife until late evening.

Where did Peter Pan Start? He started with the Davies. Telling stories to the Davies boys one day, Barrie told the tale of the boy who wouldn’t grow up, and he named him Peter after Peter Davies, who was listening intently to every word he said. As he wrote the play The Little White Bird, Barrie added in the character of Peter as a small part, but he was so intrigued by the character he decided to write a new play about him. In 1904 Barrie sat in his little cottage home as he wrote continually. Finally finishing his play Peter and Wendy, he took it to be published. At first he had no luck getting it published until his friend, Charles Frohman, who was delighted by the story, agreed to put it into production. It was an instant hit because the charming quality of the play, and people were clambering from everywhere to see the play, which was now named Peter Pan.

After leading a successful life, J. M. Barrie died at age seventy seven of pneumonia. From the time of his childhood, through his relationship with the Davies through the writing of Peter Pan, and even until his death, he was said to be quite childish and even playfully devilish at times, just like the boy he wrote about. One of the most significant things about J.M. Barrie, who loved to write stories until his death, is that he hardly ever noticed his fame and popularity. At a very old age he still loved telling stories and playing make believe, quite like a man who never grew up.

Who Are You?

Who are you? This familiar question asked by the caterpillar of Wonderland is one that is appropriate to the adventures of the man who wrote the famous classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a man who is far less known than the tale he created, though just as intriguing. Although he is most widely known as the writer, Lewis Carroll, this man, born Charles Dodgson, was also a mathematician, inventor, and teacher. Avidly creating and inventing since he was young, Charles’ early works show his prowess in clever rhymes, interesting riddles, and crazy new words such as “chortle”—a blend of “chuckle” and “snort.” Enjoying the company of children, Charles befriended three young sisters, which would lead to the writing of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

On January 27, 1832, in a small parsonage of Daresbury in Cheshire, Charles Dodgson, the man today known as Lewis Carroll, breathed his first breath. The third of eleven children, Charles was taught at home until he was eleven and enjoyed a happy, peaceful childhood with his family, although he was always very shy because of a stammer with which he was born. Charles loved to create from the very beginning. When he was thirteen, he wrote a poem called “The Fairy.”

The Fairy

I have a fairy by my side

Which says I must not sleep.

When once in pain I loudly cried
It said “You must not weep.”

If, full of mirth, I smile and grin

It says “You must not laugh;”

When once I wished to drink some gin

It said “You must not quaff.”

When once a meal I wished to taste

It said “You must not bite”;

When to the wars I went with haste

It said “You must not fight.”

“What may I do?” at length I cried,

Tired of the painful task.

The fairy quietly replied,

And said “You must not ask.

Naturally quick-witted and clever, Charles’ talent for humor paired seamlessly with logic is evident even in his first works.

It was while Charles was teaching at Christ College that he met the little girl who would spark the ideas for the story that he would one day become famous for--Alice in Wonderland. Because of his stammer, Charles was often shy among adults and preferred the company of children. Some of his closest friends were three young girls— Edith, Alice, and Ina Liddell, who were the daughters of the dean of Christ College, where Charles lectured math for many years. Whether they rowing on the pond, or Charles was telling the children a fantastical tale, or photographing the children, they always had a wonderful time. The children adored him. Peacefully rowing one golden afternoon with his good friend Robinson Duckworth and the Liddell sisters, Charles told them an enchanting story in which the main character’s name was Alice. Delighted by the story, Alice Liddell begged him to write it down. When she was older, Alice recalled that it must have been even better than usual, for Charles had made up many stories for them before, but it had never been enthralling so much as to spur a proposal for him to write it down. Alice pleaded. She begged. Charles finally agreed. Charles would write the tale for his little friend, Alice Liddell, Alice’s Adventures Underground.

Even after he began writing the Alice story down, never did Charles suspect that Alice’s Adventures Underground would be published. Hardly a year and a half later, he presented the hand-written green leather-bound book to Alice as a Christmas present, with a note inside reading, “A Christmas gift to a dear child in memory of a summer day.” After showing the book to the fairytale writer, George McDonald and his family, who were good friends of Charles’ they encouraged him strongly to publish “Alice’s Adventures Underground.” They soon persuaded Charles. Searching fervently for an illustrator, Charles decided that John Tenniel, the well-known cartoon artist, was the best fit. It was exactly three years to the day of the golden afternoon when Charles had told the tale to Alice and her sisters, that the book was published, although Charles had nearly doubled its length, added all of John’s Tenniel’s drawings, and changed the title to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

From this short tale, told on a child’s whim, was born a story known around the world, published in in over fifty languages, illustrated by over two-hundred artists, and adapted into two major motion pictures. Clearly seen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland are many aspects of Charles Dodgson, his childhood, his love and exceptional talent for inventing and storytelling, his teaching in math, and-- most importantly, his special fondness for children. It is always an adventure when people can read a work and see much of the writer inside the pages. So Charles Dodgson, who are you?

Jack's Imagination and the World of Narnia

Who was the first to enter Narnia? Some might say Lucy or some might say Polly and Diggory, but the first to enter Narnia was C.S. Leiws. Born in 1898, C.S. grew up in Ireland. As a child, Lewis already had an exceedingly extraordinary imagination. Probably the books that he’s most famous for writing, The Chronicles of Narnia, soared to the top book sales in the 1950’s. When C.S. Lewis was an older man, he fell in love with Joy Gresham, who was also a writer.

In 1898 on November 29 the writer, Clives Staples Lewis was born on outskirts of Belfast, Ireland. His family consisted of his father, Alfred Lewis, his mother, Flora Hamilton Lewis, and his older brother, Warren Lewis. Assuredly deciding, when he was four that his name didn’t suit him, Clives changed his name to Jack. Growing up, Jack was always incredibly close to his older brother, although his brother was three years older than him. They were best friends. When Jack was young he didn’t go to school but was taught at home by a tutor until he was nine years old. Unlike most young boys, they enjoyed using their exceedingly grand imaginations to write stories and draw pictures to accompany them. They created their own medieval world called animal land. Using these characters, Jack also wrote a three act play. As a young Irish boy, Jack was a unique and passionate writer already.

Imagining a snowy wood, Jack pictured a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels. Suddenly appearing to Jack, this image would form into the brilliant story known as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When Jack wrote The Chronicles of Narnia he said that if no one else would write the sort of books he wanted to read, then he would write them himself. In 1950 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was published. Immediately, the book soared to the top sales along side The Lord of the Rings, which was written by his friend J.R.R. Tolkien. After writing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Jack went on to write the other books which are The Horse and his Boy, Prince Caspian, The Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Last Battle, and The Magician’s Nephew, which completed the series. It took him years to write all seven books. Children especially loved Jack’s books, and he received many letters from children about them. He always replied. Welcoming thousands to Narnia, the faun is the first character readers meet in Narnia when they open the book and escape there.

Jack met Joy Gresham, who was an intelligent and witty woman and also a writer, when she asked him to lunch after corresponding about Jack’s books in 1950. Finding her to be engaging, Jack invited Joy and her two sons, David and Douglas, to come stay at the Kilns for Christmas. Unfortunately, Joy’s marriage was wavering, and her husband was demanding a divorce, so Joy took her boys to live in London shortly after Christmas. When Joy, David, and Douglas moved to London, Joy struggled financially. Jack helped fill this need. Throughout this time Jack and Joy maintained a strong friendship until 1956 when the government refused to renew Joy’s permit to live in England unless she married a British citizen. Jack married her so she could stay but they regarded the marriage as a practical arrangement. Falling ill to cancer, Joy was extremely weak and had to fight hard for her life. When Jack heard this, he revealed his feelings for her and insisted on a real Christian wedding. This took place in 1957. Steadily Joy began to recover and the next years were “filled with Joy” and Jack was completely in love. Before long, her cancer returned and Joy’s health quickly deteriorated. On July 13, 1960 Joy passed away with Jack at her side. Joy’s son, Douglas Gresham, wrote later, “There were never two people alive in the history of the world who were more in love than Jack and Joy.” Belonging together, these two writers, Jack and Joy, Connected spiritually and shared many loves.

Creating Narnia as a middle aged man, C.S. Lewis was still a child at heart. If there was ever a child with an excessively wild imagination, it was Jack, who used it to write stories of other worlds. Jack loved to create magical worlds. After years of friendship with Joy Gresham , he married her 1957. The most significant thing about Jack was that knew how to use his imagination and he shared it with people through his stories.

Tolkien's Magic

Since he was born, J.R.R. Tolkien had a hard childhood where many terrible things happened. Living at Oxford University years later ultimately led to his friendship with C.S. Lewis. Unexpectedly bright, J.R.R. Tolkien started his life’s work, The Lord of the Rings. When Tolkien died, his books sold quicker than he could have imagined.

On January 3, 1892, a sickly baby named John Ronald Ruel Tolkien was born to Arthur and Mabel Tolkien. Growing up to be a small, pale child, Tolkien loved stories about dragons. Arthur Tolkien died of acute peritonitis in February of 1896 and young Tolkien’s mother followed in 1904, dying from diabetes. Before his mother died, Tolkien was enrolled at King Edwards School. Quickly finding a love for poetry there, he began to write at once. Also, while he was there he studied languages.

In 1926 J.R.R. Tolkien met C.S Lewis at Oxford University. Becoming friends, they both were mesmerized by Norse mythology, and they would spend many nights staying up terribly late. While they were close friends, they were both great writers. However, J.R.R. Tolkien could not stand his friend Lewis’s books simply because of the non-subtlety of the allegory and symbols.

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Starting with these words, Tolkien brilliantly wrote The Hobbit. Happily, Tolkien wrote in a letter that in many ways he was much like a hobbit: “I am in fact a hobbit in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and unnmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and I like good plain food, but detest French cooking; I like and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field), I have a very simple sense of humor (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome), I go to bed late and get up late (whenever possible). I do not travel much.” The Hobbit, which was published on September 21 of 1937, was such a big hit that it sold out by Christmas! While the book The Hobbit was still new, Tolkien decided to write a sequel. J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings followed many years later on October 20, 1955. J.R.R. Tolkien was later nominated Author of the Century

Although he had a rough childhood, J.R.R. Tolkien loved fairytales, which became his reason for writing myths and legends. C.S. Lewis also shared the love for stories with magic, and they were close friends because of it. Writing the brilliant trilogy The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien became famous. Author of the Century, Tolkien’s legends still survive today.