Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 110

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Popular Culture Review

the other direction — so that they distance themselves from what Grendel represents:
sin, error, the Satan principle of the human psyche. During potentially violent times,
the poet is out to instill in their minds current Christian attitudes. He wants his
audience to deny the dark side, leaving no room for sympathy for this devil or his
mother — nor for Heremod, nor for the dragon at the end of the poem. It doesn’t
matter that Grendel feels pain, and that his actions stem from this pain and exclusion.
He is a monster, condemned by God because of his lineage, apart from humanity
and not a part of it. The poet will not allow his audience to identify with Grendel,
and certainly he sees nothing of himself in the creature. It is in this denial where
the Beowulf-poet differs notably from Geisel, who not only allows the Grinch the
possibility of redemption but also identifies personally with him.
Certainly the Grinch’s aversion to all the holiday hype and the mad circus
atmosphere of toys and bothersome noise agrees with Geisel’s feelings on the
subject. In fact, a main purpose for his writing the book was “to protest the
commercialization of Christmas.”7 The Grinch’s misconception that Christmas
“comes from a store” is understandable — something to which we can all easily
relate. Yet Geisel proceeds in the text to add a subtle personal note as he voices his
character’s thoughts about the situation: “I must stop this whole thing! / Why, for
fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now! / I MUST stop this Christmas from
coming!” The number here is very significant, for the Grinch is Geisel’s own age
at the writing of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Geisel turned 53 on March 2,
1957; and he finished the book in the next couple of months, so that it was in the
mail to his editor by mid-May8. Thus, as the Grinch protests and makes his decision
to take action in the story, Geisel himself takes action, producing the book that will
hopefully help to put an end to what Christmas has sadly, mistakenly become.
Attesting further to Geisel’s identification with the Grinch are the letter
that he wrote to the “Grinch brothers” and his note to Chuck Jones, producer of the
television version of The Grinch, concerning these boys who felt cursed rather
than blessed to possess the same name as Geisel’s Christmas villain, as his
biographers explain:
After The Grinch appeared on television, two brothers, David and Bob
Grinch, wrote . . . to say they were tired of being the bad guys and
wanted him to change the name of the Grinch. “I disagree with your
friends who ‘harass’ you,” Ted wrote. “Can’t they understand that the
Grinch in my story is the Hero of Christmas? Sure . . . He starts out
villain, but it’s not how you start out that counts. It’s what you are at
the finish.” Ted sent the brothers’ letter to Chuck Jones . . . writing that
he could “visualize these poor kids being chased home from school,
being clobbered . . . with brickbats in the same way / was when I was