Hating the Whos

I've had a theory for a few years that Dr. Seuss intended How the Grinch Stole Christmas (published in 1957) to be an allegory of the Holocaust.

Now that I've written that out, it seems really stupid.

Anyway, the Grinch lives up on Mt. Crumpit looking down on Whoville and hating the Whos. A large part of the tragedy of World War II had to do with Germans hating the Jews.

Now here's where my theory completely falls apart (I know, it falls apart pretty near the beginning). The Whos love Christmas, and of course the Jews don't (traditionally speaking). Of course the Germans - generally speaking - would love Christmas, being a predominantly Christian country (Klaus is a common German first name, based on a shortening of Nicholas). So I guess what happened is Dr. Seuss turned the whole thing around to turn the book into an panegyric on Christianity. The Grinch hates the Whos like the Germans hated the Jews, if the Germans had held onto their Christian beliefs, they would have loved their fellow beings, just as the Grinch learns to love the Whos by accepting the magic of Christmas. Far-fetched as this is, there is a book called The Parables of Dr. Seuss that proposes many of his stories, including that of the Grinch, contain a Christian message.

Completing this entry makes me think it would be a bad idea to write - as I was planning to - on the connection between J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch.