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Horton Hears A Who The Lessons It Teaches Us
Time was that every story we listened to on our mother's knee had a moral. The moral had to be a good one. Then, over the years, it did not matter whether a story had a lesson to teach or not. As long as it entertained, it was fine. The trend was the same with books and with movies.
Suddenly, there seems to be a resurgence, at least with animation movies and the wheel seems to be going back full circle to stories with lessons to teach. Whether it is Ice Age or Shrek, the stories follow the similar pattern of a beginning when everything is all right, a middle, when things get shaken up and an end where good always, but always wins. So it is with Seuss's 1954 poem, Horton Hears A Who.
Horton the elephant, though huge and lumbering and maybe not terribly bright, has a heart of gold. It is this that sees him through all kinds of adversity and helps him win in the end. The winning, too, is not in material terms but something worth far more. The thing with Horton that strikes you is his tenacity once he knows the right thing that he has to do. He will go to the ends of the earth, literally, for that. When he does, he gets humiliated, caught and bound and is almost caged like a madman till the truth comes out - there really is a real world that no one can see.
Another lesson that comes through is not to make judgments about things you know nothing about because you might just have to eat your words. If you are wrong, when the truth strikes, it's time to lay aside your pride and surrender graciously. This, too, comes out strongly in the end.
One more lesson is that there is strength in unity. All the yelling, screaming and banging in Whoville was of no avail till little Jojo added his mite to it. Then suddenly, all their efforts were successful. Just goes to show, no matter how small a cog in the machine we are, we are important. This is what Horton tries to tell everyone, and though he is not believed, finally, he is vindicated.
There are many more little lessons - little nuggets thrown in here and there in this wonderful story but the over riding one is of good winning out - no matter what. It's the kind of story any parent will want to tell their child. It's got the kind of moral that we would like our little ones to grow up with. This then is what makes Horton Hears A Who to stand out and figure as one of the most wonderful tales that can be told.