When English Teachers Go Bad
Hop on Pop, that Dr. Seuss classic, has a three page sequence that could be construed as a simple yet eloquent examination of the human condition through a modern nihilist lens. Really, Beckett couldn’t do it better.
ALL BALL We all play ball.
Here “playing ball” is established as a metaphor for life and/or that pesky human condition. We all do it. No one is exempt from playing ball.
BALL WALL Up on a wall.
Ah, here we meet the precariouness of our situation. Rather like a, ahem, fiddler on the roof, we are playing ball, or living, in a situation rife with the risk of falling.
ALL FALL Fall off the wall.
Yep, we all die in the end, also known as falling off the wall.
And, yep, that is what a $100,000 English degree gets you. I can’t even read children’s books without engaging is sophistic analysis.
Stumble it!
Donate to the Zoë and Lennox Simpson Memorial Fund
and the 529 college savings accounts get a kickback.
May 31st, 2007 10:40
And I thought I was bad for finding EPIC in everything! Actually, Stacie, you will find you must play these games with yourself in order to read Hop on Pop 7,675, 987 times in the next three years. A good portion of that will be in the same week, since toddlers get obsessed with books and want the same one over and over.
May 31st, 2007 10:47
You should try submitting that theory as an article for publication. doubt The Heroic Age would be interested, but you never know. lol
May 31st, 2007 16:03
Do “The Cat in the Hat” next, please. I’ve always read a lot of parental alienation into that one.
May 31st, 2007 16:41
And now you know why I like math and science…
May 31st, 2007 22:11
Good one. _Mary Poppins_ has suffered a similar fate in my mind over the past six years. The dancing survives every school of lit. crit., however. Great fun!
June 1st, 2007 11:48
Funny, we just read those pages about 73 times this morning. Just those pages of course. We didn’t make it through the book once.
June 1st, 2007 14:37
Nice.