Subject: Grinch
Culture: American pop culture
Setting: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
Context (Event Photos, Primary Sources. Secondary Sources, Field Notes)
"You can say that a Grinch wants to steal Christmas, and you don’t need to know anything more about him–he is just a villainous Grinch who hates Christmas. A human being cannot be that simple. If a human villain–an old man, for example–wanted to steal Christmas, we would have to go deeper into the character, to find out whether he hated Christmas because of his age, because he lived alone on a mountain, or because he loathed kids. What we do shamefully recognize, of course, is that we are all a bit like the Grinch, for we all hate Christmas a little. Or a lot. Even children hate Christmas a little. As a child you worry that your brother or sister might be given better presents, and you rarely receive all you asked for. And when it’s all over, it’s worse–there’s the dull work of dismantling the tree, and above all there is the endless thank-you letters to write. My personal problem was forgetting what anybody had given me, and I would write to my grand-mother complimenting her on knowing my size, when she had given me a jackknife. Ted Geisel had no children, and he shared the Grinch’s grumpiness about Christmas–all those kids racing around making noise."
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