The Hat in the Cat

By Joshua Weinberg

Having read some critical theory and taken a hand at applying such theories to suitable texts, I

always wonder how much real information is gleaned from in between lines of text and how much is

simply navel gazing? From Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, Sigmund Freud’s Five Lectures of

Psycho-Analysis, to Roland Barthes’ S/Z all these theories have their own scales and scopes, and while not

entirely cross-compatible, they should nonetheless be able to support one and other.

In the spirit of uncovering the multivalent from what might be considered a brief and self-evident

text, I will attempt to plumb for a universe of depth and complexity within The Cat in the Hat by Theodor

Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). First, I will provide a cultural backdrop upon which the creation of the book was

set, and then use the critical theories outlined above combined with close reading to bring out the influence

that this cultural backdrop has had on the text.

The Cat in the Hat, written in 1957 during the McCarthy era and the

cold-war, was published at a time when there was concern over a disparity

between the American educational system, and that of Europe’s. This

concern is well-articulated in the book Why Johnnie Can’t Read by Rudolf

Franz Flesch, wherein he sites a learning gap between students in Europe

and America and faults the reading system used in American schools for

the disparity. “Do you know there are no remedial reading cases in

Germany, in France, in Italy, in Norway, and in Spain—practically

anywhere in the world except in the Unites States?”(2) Flesch claims that the system of phonics in use in

Europe is a vastly superior reading method and the sight reading method (still in use in the United States)

is not only inferior, but essentially un-American, as it creates an underclass of poor and non-readers who

are subject to on-going discrimination in their further education due to their inability to read with the

required proficiency (Flesch).

Furthermore, we should consider the institutional forces at work in and around the writing of a

book intended to teach reading. The following is a provision of the “National Defense Education Act of

1958”, wherein a loyalty oath and affidavit was specified for those who would receive funds:
 “No individual may receive funds under this act unless he first files
with the commissioner an affidavit ‘the he does not believe in, and is
not a member of and does not support any organization that believes in
or teaches, the overthrow of the United States Government by force or
violence or by an illegal or unconstitutional methods.’”(National
Defense Education Act of 1958)

As related by Louis Menand in his New Yorker magazine article “Cat People: What Dr. Seuss

really taught us.”, the writing of Cat in the Hat was conceived as a challenge by William Spaulding (then

director of the education division at publisher Houghton Miffilin) to Theodor Geisel (aka, Dr. Seuss), to

deliver the basic principles of phonics in a book designed not only to be read by children, but to inculcate

within them the phonetic principals of reading. His hope was that the mastery of such phonetic principals

might allow for young readers to spontaneously move on to more advanced reading materials (Menand,

par. 6-10) and shore up the perceived educational gap between America and Europe. Geisel said of his

acceptance of the project:

He [publisher William Spaulding] sent me a list of about three hundred
words and told me to make a book out of them. At first I thought it was
impossible and ridiculous, and I was about to get out of the whole
thing; then decided to look at the list one more time and to use the
first two words that rhymed as the title of the book—cat and hat were
the ones my eyes lighted on. I worked on the book for nine
months—throwing it across the room and letting it hang for a while—but I
finally got it done.(Menand, par. 10)

The Cat in the Hat therefore, was not designed as an entertainment, but to inculcate phonics (a method of

reading instruction) to young readers. According to the challenge, Geisel was to use no more 300 words

selected from a list published in Why Johnnie Can’t Read. These 300 words were characterized by Flesch

as having the ability to serve as a phonetic base from which young readers might naturally advance in

reading, at their own pace (Menand). Geisel chose to use only 220 words, and set the text to verse in

anapestic dimeter, a rhythm conducive to memorization, repetition, and an intuitive conceptualization of the

connection between spelling and pronunciation. As such, the book has remained one of the most popular

children’s books since its introduction. However, as a cultural document, it is ripe for interpretation as its

express purpose is decidedly clandestine.

Let us now review the greater themes of the work. We begin with two protagonists, the boy,

(unnamed) and Sally. Mother has left them home alone on a rainy day and both appear unhappy, they

cannot go outside. Sally doesn’t utter a word in the entire book. The Cat appears in a vacuum created by
the absence of authority. He asserts a foreign value system in the home. The environment of the house

(analogous to the cultural backdrop) is resistive to change, and the goldfish is deputized as a temporary

authority figure. The goldfish is no match for the Cat, but ultimately mobilizes the boy’s resistance. The

Cat releases Thing One and Thing Two, (neither of whom speak English) and in the face of this destructive

value system and the immanent return of authority the boy is goaded into action by the goldfish and

vanquishes the Cat. Fear is his primary motive, fear of repercussions, fear of abandonment, and the fear of a

foreign value system. “Then our fish said, Look! Look! And our fish shook with fear. Your mother is on

her way home! Do you hear? Oh what will she do to us? What will she say? Oh, she will not like it to find

us this way!”(47)
 It’s fairly easy to see how these themes relate to cold-war hysteria. It would appear, from Geisel’s

WWII political cartoons, that he had a tendency to voice his opinions on US policy. Published by the New

York tabloid, PM in April of 1942.

Perhaps it’s safe to characterize Theodor Geisel as a sometime activist, conceivably well-meaning,

but a man with a political conscience, and the will to voice it.

It is apparent that at heart of this book lies the author’s intent to covertly inform and inculcate the

young reader, but is it all author’s intent? Barthes refutes the significance of author’s intent in his book

S/Z:
“Some, (the philologists, lets us say), [declare] every text be
univocal, possessing a true, canonical meaning banish the simultaneous,
secondary meanings, to the void of critical lucubrations. On the other
hand, others (the semiologists, let us say) contest the hierarchy of
denotated and connotated”.(7)

In a quick semiotic disassembly, (however) we find a

string of negative semiotic associations which may, or

may not be author’s intent. Starting with our black Cat,

we move to bad luck, witch’s familiar, Puss in Boots

etc… The Cat’s large red and white striped hat resembles

prison-wear. Visually located somewhere outside the

boundaries of American 50’s culture, he seems very likely to be a foreign agent intent on toppling the

authority structures within our homes. And given the machinery and resources at the Cat’s disposal, he

would appear to be well-funded.

 If you’ll permit a short semiotic leap then, a cat

in a hat, is reminiscent of nothing else so much, as the

original cat trickster, Puss in Boots.

In The Master Cat; or, Puss in Boots by

Charles Perrault, Puss in Boots’ cunning, and

resourcefulness, coupled with his secretive agenda must

certainly be the inspiration for Geisel’s Cat in the Hat.

Puss in Boots secures for his owner, (a miller’s son

with no inheritance other than a cat) a position in the

castle as Prince, while simultaneously securing for

himself a lordship. Geisel’s Cat has no visible owner;

no discernable agenda, and no clear ideological

affiliation. So what on earth is Geisel’s Cat after?

Theodor Geisel glibly informs us, that he arrived at his principle character after having chosen the first two

words in Flesch’s list that rhymed Cat and Hat, but the image is so apropos that it’s hard to believe he

would have arrived at it randomly, Bartes’ opinions on author’s intent notwithstanding.

From a Freudian perspective the characters in the book are ascribable to the elements comprising

Freud’s Structure of the Mind and follow the precepts of his theory of repression. If we accept that the

Mother and the boy are external to the book, all the other events and characters can be placed within the

matrix of the boy’s personality. Sally who neither speaks nor acts during the entire episode is a silent

repository for the functions of the ego, and the boy is a representation of the self in action. The Cat

represents the id, and in parental absence the goldfish acts as the voice of the parent, typifying the behavior

of the super-ego.
 If we now view these archetypal characters at work we can see the psychological dynamics involved.

The goldfish (super-ego) attempts to out-shout the Cat (id) who appears unannounced, uninvited. The

appearance of the Cat (id) causes an aesthetic schism in the ego (Sally) and the self (the boy); neither

knows how to react, other than in shock. Owing to an immanent return of authority (Mom), and the

goading of the goldfish(super-ego), the self (boy) takes action and Thing One, Thing Two, (symptoms of

repression) and the Cat in the Hat (id) are all repressed.

As Freud says in his Second Lecture:

“It had happened that a wish had been aroused, which was in sharp
opposition to the other desires of the individual, and was not capable
of being reconciled with the ethical, aesthetic and personal pretensions
of the patient's personality. There had been a short conflict, and the
end of this inner struggle was the repression of the idea which
presented itself to consciousness as the bearer of this irreconcilable
wish. This was, then, repressed from consciousness and forgotten. The
incompatibility of the idea in question with the "ego" of the patient
was the motive of the repression, the ethical and other pretensions of
the individual were the repressing forces. The presence of the
incompatible wish, or the duration of the conflict, had given rise to a
high degree of mental pain; this pain was avoided by the
repression.”(22)
Freud’s theories would tend to support the idea that the events described are repressive reactions to the

chaotic desires of the id. All of which happens without a trace of evidence in the outside world, as Mom is

left completely in the dark. The book is an imaginative and fanciful adventure, almost a dream, but

underneath the manifest content of that dream lies the

latent content, which reveals the interplay of the writer’s

ego, super-ego, and id. As Freud says in his Third

Lecture:
“the dreams of adults generally have
an incomprehensible content,… these
dreams have undergone a process of
disguise.... You must differentiate
between the manifest dream-content,…
and the latent dream-thoughts, whose
presence in the unconscious we must
assume.”(40)

This is likely to be without any author’s intent, and the

interplay of the various personality functions are a

mirror of the creative processes and stresses taking place

in the writing. The use of such limited vocabulary to

deliver a compelling children’s adventure book might be

seen as an attempt to juggle more items than is humanly

possible, just as the Cat does when he says,

“I can hold up the cup and the milk and the cake! I can hold up these books! I can hold the toy ship and a

little toy man! And look! With my tail I can hold a red fan!”(18). The cold-war paranoia uncovered in

semiotic analysis could simply be unintentional leakage symptomatic of the repression of ideas unsuitable

for a children’s book. Perhaps, given the stress of creating a children’s book under such conditions

Geisel’s overtaxed psyche has unwittingly approved the vestiges of ideas which he might have otherwise

dismissed as inappropriate.

Moving on to Foucault in our critical analysis, we can attempt to view Geisel’s Cat as an agent

threatening a hierarchy of power and authority within the most fundamental cultural unit, the nuclear family.

We can easily see the Mother as a principle authority figure, with the goldfish taking up her role in
absentia. The Mother has the ability to control her children even while she is out. This is accomplished by,

in Foucault’s words, “fixing them in space, coding their continuous behavior, maintaining them in perfect

visibility, forming around them an apparatus of observation [the Panopticon]. The general form of an

apparatus intended to render individuals docile and useful”(231).

Like a mother in a child’s eyes, the goldfish, positioned in a glass bowl can similarly see

everything. His bowl is panopticonal, and the cat interrupts this control system at a sensitive point when the

mother is out. Upon entering the house the Cat attempts to instantiate himself as a new authority.
 “’I know some new tricks,’ said the Cat in the Hat, ‘a lot of new tricks, I will show them to you.

Your mother will not mind at all if I do.” (8). The Foucaultian containment apparatus is immediately

activated by this transgressive code violation. The first words from the goldfish are, “No! No! Make that

cat go away!... He should not be here when your mother is out!”(11) The goldfish clearly articulates the

violation of code (no strangers in the home), reinforcing the authority of the mother and the code of

behavior proscribed by her. Next the Cat’s destroys the Panopticon by removing the goldfish from his

bowl, and to attempt to dismantle the fear of reprisal that lies at the root of compliance. “Now! Now! Have

no fear. Have no fear!”(12) says the Cat while balancing and subsequently dropping the goldfish into an

opaque teapot. Despite the goldfish’s vision being now occluded, he nonetheless attempts to assert

authority and contain the Cat. “Now look at this house! Look at this! Look at that!... You SHOULD NOT

be here when our mother is not. You get out of this house! Said the fish in the pot.”(25) In spite of (and

perhaps in answer to) such protestation the Cat introduces us to a large box with a sickle and hammer
shaped latch mechanism containing two non-English speaking agents, Thing One and Thing Two. The box

contains a chain of semiotic political associations; it is red, and closed with a latch which resembles the

communist sickle and hammer, “Thing One” and “Thing Two” also wear red and speak another

language, the communist association of “Reds” is made alarmingly evident.

The introduction of Things One and Two multiply the home invasion (and our fear), and the

resulting damage spirals out of control. With the declaration by the goldfish of an imminent return of

authority, the boy is forced to act and successfully contains Thing One and Thing Two with a net. The

‘net’ also has a potent semiotic connotation with containment, connoting a ‘net’ with the use of social,

political, and institutional networks to contain destructive and chaotic foreign influences. The Cat exits in

shame, only to return at the eleventh hour with a large cleaning machine. The only conceivable reason for so

altruistic an act, is to remain undetected by authority, (Mom) and thus the Cat is free to return, as evidenced

in the follow-up book, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. The question of whether or not to report these

events is left to the Boy, who with no visible evidence remaining of the horrors that have ensued, has no real

motivation to report them and possibly get into even more hot water.
 There is no denying that The Cat in the Hat is a book with author’s intent. It is obviously intended

to convey the phonetic reading method, and these phonetics are not taught per se but inculcated within the

work, which gives the book a secretive agenda. I believe this is where the author’s intent ends and a more

Foucaultian sub-text begins. Written when a cold-war paranoia permeated the U.S., The Cat in the Hat is

steeped in the prevailing hysteria against communism and uncontained foreign ideology. The lack of

author’s intent for such paranoia, does not preclude the possibility of such outside influence slipping in. In

this sense The Cat in the Hat is a sort of cold-war time capsule. Theodor Geisel’s strong personality

expressed itself through cartoons and children’s books so creatively, that his books have held sway in our

culture for the better part of 75 years. But like all of Geisel’s creations, he was both human and fallible, so

It’s not so hard to imagine the sub-themes of foreign domination and covert agendas being a huge

Freudian slip. Or, should we doubt the motives of all written works and seek conspiracy everywhere. I’ll

leave you to decide.

 In summation a Foucaultian analysis supports the intent of this book as a vehicle for societal

control and a colonization of the mind, if only in the simple act of attempting to teach phonics. Freud’s

theories support the clear division between the story’s manifest and latent content. Wordsworth in his

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads has said that all good poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful

feelings”.(295) which lends further support to our Freudian analysis. Barthes, has argued that there is no

such thing as author’s intent, all text is multivalent and interpretation is boundless. While Susan Sontag

argues against just this sort of critical dissection when she states in Against Interpretation, “it is the

revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish”(547). These contradictory views can

be arranged in a continuum, from the multivalent holographic text, to the inability of words to accurately

convey any meaning whatsoever. This pretty well leaves it up to us to determine, on a case-by-case basis,

what is an appropriate interpretation for a given piece of art.

In my personal (and I hope less paranoiac) view the multiplicity of agendas at work in our culture

have overlapping contours, and wherever these contours overlap, something akin to tributaries can form.

Such tributaries represent a certain momentum of complicity, where the act of consent is not so much the

affirmation of particular policies but the tacit complicity of not speaking out against them.

These cultural trends may appear insidious and covert, but they are more a thing of momentum than

intention, and shrivel in the light of public discourse and a true free-press. The responsibility of such public

discourse is onerous however, as there is always the possibility of misinterpretation and subversion of the

message. Perhaps in The Cat in the Hat Geisel’s intentions were simply to empower a generation of

American children by teaching the fundaments of language. And yet, despite that altruistic intention his

work was partially, if not completely hijacked by the prevailing cold-war hysteria.
 WORKS CITED

Bartes, Roland S/Z. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970.

Flesch, Rudolf Franz. Why Johnnie Can’t Read. New York: Harper & Row, 1955.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1977.

Freud, Sigmund. Five Lectures of Psycho-Analysis. New York: Norton, 1909.

Menand, Louis. “Cat People: What Dr. Seuss really taught us” The New Yorker: newyorker.com.

23 Dec. 2002. 13 Dec. 2004 <http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?021223crat_atlarge>

Perrault, Charles. The Master Cat; or, Puss in Boots. Paris: 1697.

Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966.

Seuss, Dr. The Cat in the Hat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957.

U.S. Government. “The National Defense Education Act of 1958” Federal Support for University Research:

Berkeley.edu 1 Oct. 1998. 14 Dec. 2004. http://ishi.lib.berkeley.edu/cshe/ndea/ndea.html

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. New York: Basingstoke Hampshire, 1802.

 WORKS CONSULTED

Bartes, Roland S/Z. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970.

Flesch, Rudolf Franz. Why Johnnie Can’t Read. New York: Harper & Row, 1955.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1977.

Freud, Sigmund. Five Lectures of Psycho-Analysis. New York: Norton, 1909

Menand, Louis. “Cat People: What Dr. Seuss really taught us” The New Yorker: newyorker.com.

23 Dec. 2002. 13 Dec. 2004 <http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?021223crat_atlarge>

Perrault, Charles. The Master Cat; or, Puss in Boots. Paris: 1697.

Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966.

Seuss, Dr. The Cat in the Hat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957.

U.S. Government. “The National Defense Education Act of 1958” Federal Support for University Research:

Berkeley.edu 1 Oct. 1998. 14 Dec. 2004. <http://ishi.lib.berkeley.edu/cshe/ndea/ndea.html>

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. New York: Basingstoke Hampshire, 1802.