Meaning Of The Sneetches By Dr. Seuss

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“The Sneetches” by Dr. Seuss is a very famous children’s book which appears to be an innocent nighttime story, but one that digs a little deeper with an underlying historical meaning to the story. With a little research about the author, a relationship is shown between the author and his reasoning for writing this story. From the powerful star bellied Sneetches all the way to Mr. McBean, all have a greater meaning portraying people from the worlds most unsettling time period, WWII. A time Dr. Seuss lived through and illustrates his thoughts and feelings through his characters. This story accurately reveals the authors past, his views on WWII, and even the events and changes during the time period through such a simple childrens book. Researching …show more content…

Mr. McBean represents an entire form of government, Capitalism. McBean creates a machine that can help the plain bellied Sneetches become star bearing Sneetch, this seems like a nice gesture until he creates a machine that takes stars off so that the original star bellied Sneetches are now different from the plain bellied Sneetches. This creates a problem that would not have even been there without McBean in the first place. If Capitalistic government replaces McBean in this statement and if American’s replaces Sneetches then this becomes Dr. Seuss view of Capitalism. That a Capitalistic government will make a person think that they need to get something when they really don’t and their reason for needing to get it was placed there by the Capitalistic government. This is from the type of government in America that has had since the 1800’s. A supporter of Capitalism back during the revolutionary war Adam Smith himself explains what capitalism is in few words, “...individuals would serve the public interest, unconsciously, as if guided, as he said, by an "unseen hand."”. In reference to the Sneetches this hand is McBean. Another way Dr. Seuss shows his feelings towards Capitalism is when the price goes up from $3 to $10. This explains how the government will raise the prices as the demand goes up and the only one who makes those