That Sam-I-Am, that Sam-I-Am
He should take it on the lam
With his annoying
Rhymes he's toying
With my brain gone all flim-flam!
Have you noticed that the seemingly sweet and funny story, Green Eggs and Ham (marketed as a harmless children's book), has some severely dysfunctional aspects to it?
One has to wonder why little Sam is so insistent about a complete and total stranger experiencing the joys of green eggs and ham. The stranger politely refuses, but Sam continues to press him, demonstrating his lack of healthy boundaries. THroughout the book Sam torments this stranger, and one must wonder what insecurity drove him to displace and project his misguided thought system on this innocent bystander?
And who is this stranger anyway? He is never given a name. No doubt his mother didn't care enogh to name him. Therefore he grew up with the idea that he had no identity. To cover up his dismay at this fact, he becomes a ticking time bomb, a calm exterior ready to explode right when little Sam-I-Am decides to jiggle him a bit.
So eventually, Sam-I-Am wears down the stranger's exceedingly strict boundaries, (which the stranger compromises just to get the little guy to shut the heck up.) and the stranger, in a last-ditch attempt to get Sam off his back, covers up his true emotions about green eggs and ham and assures the little pest that he loves the dish, thus suppressing himself further.
Why is the stranger so disposed to hate green eggs and ham? Well obviously something traumatic happened in connection with this odd dish early in his childhood and he had no wish to dive back into painful memories. But he was forced to, and now he's withdrawn even further from help. All because of Sam-I-Am's medicommunication that the stranger's feelings aout green eggs and ham didn't matter much.
Please consider this before you next go out to purchase a Dr. Seuss book, You don't want your children shoving plastic hot dogs at a vegetarian's kid in Sunday School.
—The Teenager
A Scholarly Criticism of Some Icky Green Stuff
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