Social Analysis of The Sneetches | Teen Ink

Social Analysis of The Sneetches

August 24, 2019
By Linssy GOLD, Shenzhen, Other
Linssy GOLD, Shenzhen, Other
10 articles 0 photos 0 comments

The Sneetches is a short story written by Dr. Seuss. It was written in a relaxed and easy style that children can read, but it also contains deeper meanings for older readers to consider carefully. The topic of this story is about discrimination, the story was written in the 1960s when people strongly oppose discriminations. The thesis of the story is that everyone should abandon discrimination, treat everybody the same, which is important because it is related to everyday life and can affect lots of people.
        

The Sneetches were very discriminative at the beginning. The star belly Sneetches felt they are more superior than the plain belly Sneetches, they were the best of all. “With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they’d snort.”  They look down upon the plain belly Sneetches.“You only could play if your bellies had stars, and the Plain-Belly children had none upon stars.” This shows there were division between Sneetches, the star bellies isolated the plain bellies.
        

The idea of the story is that the discrimination between the Sneetches was ridiculous and foolish. They kept spending money, trying to be the most superior ones, adding stars and removing them, trapped in an infinity circle. “Through the machines they raced around and about again,Changing their stars every minute or two.They kept paying money. They kept running through”. The good thing is that they realized the problem at last after the lesson from McBean,“they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches, And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches”. So the Sneetches realized they should be, and in fact they are, all equal. In the author’s point of view, that is exactly what the real world should be like as well.
        

In real life discriminations happen a lot too, all kind of discriminations, not about stars on the belly, but about races, gender, regions… For example, women are often more difficult to find jobs in the workplace than men; people from another region may be discriminated by local people because of the different cultures, and be judged by stereotyping…
          

The point is, there should not be any discrimination anywhere, anytime. Everyone should be treated equally and fairly. It is ridiculous to have the thought that some people are more superior. “No kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches”.  Be like the Sneetches in the end, forget about the stars!



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