The Unbelievably True Story Behind The Lorax
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, I stretched my massive frame across an expensive and recently paid off leather couch, desperately seeking some diversion. Something to help cross the canyon of time standing between Tuesday and Wednesday. Believing hope rested on the tip of my remote, I searched the thousands of movies available to me across a bevy of devices and found “The Lorax.” Throughout the film, I noticed details that seemed to reference deeper meanings. If nothing else, I am a wannabe detective, so I took my pursuit of the truth to the hallowed halls of Google, where strangely enough, nothing could be found on Seuss esotericism.
That was the end of my story.
Three weeks later, while standing in line waiting to return a pair of Zubaz pants, an older gentleman overheard me on the phone discussing my Seuss frustration with an old high school girlfriend. He waited until I completed both my conversation and the transaction and approached me cautiously, like an alligator wrangler approaching a backyard in Florida. With a tap of the finger, he started a conversation that changed my life forever. First, the old-timer acknowledged the awkwardness of discussing a conversation in which he was not an active participant. After I disarmed him with a smile and a wave of my right hand, he proceeded to inform me about a library found on Staten Island, NY called “The Great Kills Library.” I would discover Seussian truth somewhere inside the bowels of that two-hundred-year-old building. Joy filled my heart, and I felt the need to thank the man to which he insisted none was needed. At last, he permitted me to kiss his gnarled left hand, and I was on my way to the hallowed halls of the Great Kills Library.
Unfortunately, they were closed.
I rented a room at the Victory Motor Inn and showed up again the next morning, wearing the same clothes. After hours of perusing various microfilms and filthy relics, I came upon an article written in the early parts of the twentieth century by James Cortelyou. The headline screamed, “THE LORAX AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION,” and as I scanned down, all I saw was one big brown stain. Of course, the rest of the article was illegible, due to a careless patron spilling coffee over the document like a large man entering a bath.
Blast!
Ninety-five percent of the time, that’s the end of the story. Ninety-nine percent of the time, whatever truth there is left to find is consigned to the garbage bin of history.
Thankfully, I am part of the one percent. A sentence, which, when taken out of context, might condemn me to the fate suffered by those later on in this story.
With a recipe that is two-thirds ingenuity, a quarter high-speed Internet connection, and three-eighths free long distance phone call thanks to Verizon, I managed to track down James Cortelyou at his house deep in the brass fields of Tecumseh, Oklahoma. At first, he was hesitant to speak, most likely due to the intimidating Seuss agents residing all across the continental United States. Eventually, due to his need to unburden his heavy soul before passing on to the great beyond, he opened up and told me the true story behind, “The Lorax.”
Our tale begins in the year 1793, in the quaint French countryside of Fougères, located on the outskirts of le Mont St-Michel. Fougères is famous for having one of the only three belfries in Brittany, a former feudal state that existed for a time in France. For years, peace ruled the land until the winds of change began hinting of ominous actions to come. With the monarchy facing opposition from all sides and the people thirsting for freedom, it was the perfect storm for creativity, fresh ideas, and impending doom.
Enter Pierre de la Crème Glacée Parapluie, or simply Pete Parapluie to his friends. Pete was a simple glassmaker, one of the dozens located in a town famous for its glass-making industry. His life was a series of routines, and Pete anticipated his life would stay that way until he finally closed his eyes. One of those routines involved his hands, specifically his fingers. Every day he would come home with slight scratches all over his delicate digits from the exquisite element of the glass. If that was his only hassle, historians agree that Pete would have settled into a lifetime of obscurity.
It wasn’t.
He didn’t.
The problem began as all problems did back then, with the upper crust of French society. They enjoyed the finer things in life, and there was nothing finer than the glass in Pete’s shop. They would come in their fancy clothes and powdered faces, shooting off their sneering glances and condescending attitudes. Pete did his best to smile; after all, it was nearly impossible to find a French aristocrat at that time who didn’t sneer and condescend with a powdered face and fancy clothes. If that was the only problem, historians are also in agreement that Pete’s name might have survived a generation after his death, but no more than two.
It wasn’t.
And once again, he didn’t.
The crux, the essence, the Coeur of the matter was how the aristocrats traveled with their cats.
Not just one cat, many cats.
Multiple cats.
Lots of cats.
Une multitude de chats.
Pete hated cats.
These cats would come and use his shop as their own personal litter box. What was formerly a clean workplace turned into a disgusting toilet. Long after the aristocrats and their cats had bid him adieu, Pete would find nastiness in his shoes, in his glass machinery, even in his ears. This drove Pete, crazy. Did you ever find shit in your ears? Not dirt, but actual shit.
It is not a pleasant feeling.
Enough was enough.
On the morning of January 20, 1793, he marched down to The Church of Saint Sulpice and demanded the attention of the townspeople. Quickly, a mob gathered, (as was the norm at the time) to listen to Pete’s words. There he gave a speech widely regarded as the most important in French history and the reason why King Louis XVI was executed the very next day. Before we get to those words, let me extend my apologies to those who speak French. Some of the meaning gets lost in translation.
My fellow countrymen!
I am tired! I am tired of making glass for these horrible rich people who think they are better than we are. I am tired of seeing their smug faces and having to hold my tongue as they talk down to me. But most of all, I am tired of their cats!
To hell with their cats!
To hell with those useless animals that believe by virtue of their birth that they own dominion over all that they see. To hell with their belief that they can go to the bathroom wherever they want. I am tired of their shit, both literal and metaphorical. WE are tired of their shit. I know there isn’t a man alive here in our proud town that enjoys finding cat shit in their ears. I know there isn’t a woman alive in this town who enjoys having to ruin their brooms sweeping up all the cat shit. I say it’s time we give them back all the shit they have given us!
It is time to rise up!
It is time to cast off these bonds of servitude and force the rich to acknowledge who truly runs this beautiful land we call France!
It is time to fuck shit up!
After that last line, the crowd went into a frenzy and began to chant,
A l’enfer avec les Royals et a l’enfer avecs leurs chats!
Translated into English,
To hell with the Royals and to hell with their cats!
This sentiment raged across the countryside as hordes of angry French citizens attacked those they believed persecuted them. They wanted freedom, they wanted equality, and they wanted to be rid of those annoying cats. Thus, the end result of an attack on French nobility was their cats placed into a sack and thrown into a river.
In casting off their symbolic shackles, they cast off the cats.
The most impressionable of all were the French children, who watched this all go down. Psychologists later concluded that to deal with the horrors, the French children created a game that later became the impetus of the game “Freeze Tag,” complete with a song. The game would begin with all the children gathered together. Quickly, two children would be singled out. One would be “The Royalty,” and one would be “The Cat.” The rest of the children would denigrate into a mob and chase “The Royalty” and “The Cat.” When they finally caught “The Royalty,” the child was forced to stand still and watch as the children then focused their attention on finding “The Cat.” Once “The Cat” was found, the children would carry “The Cat” and throw them into “The River,” symbolized by the mounds of garbage piling up around the countryside. Once “The Cat” was thrown into “The River” the children would sing,
Nous sommes les enfants assez & petit
Nous jeter le cat dans la rivière
La Révolution vivent plus longtemps que le cat
C’est dans la rivière jeter
Le cat jeter
Le cat jeter
Le cat dans la rivière jeter
Le cat jeter
Le cat jeter
Et a l’enfer avec lui
Translated into English,
We are children pretty and small
We throw the cat in the river
The Revolution shall live longer than the cat
That’s in the river
Throw the cat
Throw the cat
Throw the cat
In the river
Throw the cat
Throw the cat
Throw the cat
And to hell with him!
It was at this point in the conversation where I firmly believed James Cortelyou was wearing a spaghetti strainer for a hat. He heard the silence echoing from thousands of miles away and asked, with a hint of glee in his voice, “Perhaps you’re wondering how this ties into The Lorax?”
In the late 1960s, Theodor Seuss Geisel was traveling the French countryside with his second wife, Audrey Stone Dimond, when they decided to check out the famous castle in Fougères, built in the year 1000. In the middle of their journey to the castle, they came across the infamous Church of Saint Sulpice. Believing if you’ve seen one church, you’ve seen them all Theodor was content to continue their trek. Audrey, however, begged her husband to stop when she saw a bunch of stuffed cat dolls piled up along the sides of the columns making up the front of the church. “Such a curious sight,” she was said to exclaim. “Let’s go investigate.”
The weary travelers approached the front door and tried to understand the significance behind the cats. Seeing how Theodor couldn’t read or speak French, he asked a fellow traveler to translate the words on the plaque found to the right of said door. Those words were the famous speech Pete made nearly two hundred years prior. Now intrigued, Seuss grew obsessed with learning the rest of the story. By the time he arrived home in California, Seuss knew he had to Americanize the story and make it suitable for children.
Thus, “The Lorax.”
There was a forty-second pause between us before I thanked James for his time and hung up the phone. Two weeks later, he was found dead in his home. Cause of death? Choked on a cherry.
What’s the most popular fruit tree in France?
The Cherry tree.
I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks.
So the next time you read, “The Lorax” to your children or watch the movie on Netflix, remember the symbolic meaning behind the Lorax creature, representing the French peasants and the “Once-Ler” representing the French Royalty. Think of those simple French people. Think of all those simple French people who had to suffer from finding cat shit in their ears. Think of how cat shit led to the French Revolution, forever changing the way people lived and were governed. Think of how, without the cat shit, there would be no French Revolution and consequently, no United States of America.
The next time you are frustrated with American politics remember we are a country founded on the principles of cat shit and throwing cats into the river…
Throw the cat
Throw the cat
Throw the cat
And to hell with him!
