Horton Hatches the Egg
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
A book by Dr. Seuss, aka Theodore Geisel, concerning an elephant convinced by an irresponsible bird named Mayzie into sitting on her egg while she takes a break--which proves to last for months. Of course, the absurd sight of fat, huge Horton sitting atop a tree makes quite a scene. Horton is laughed at by his jungle friends, exposed to the elements, captured by hunters, forced to endure a terrible sea voyage, and finally placed in a travelling circus. All through the ordeal Horton repeats this refrain:
- I meant what I said, and I said what I meant:
- An elephant's faithful one hundred percent.
Mayzie finds Horton at the circus just in time to see her egg hatch. She demands the egg back, but is denied it by Horton and onlookers when it hatches into a tiny winged elephant.
Horton Hatches the Egg was adapted by Warner Brothers in 1942, directed by Bob Clampett. A couple of interesting gags appeared in the cartoon that were not in the original. A fish caricature of Peter Lorre says, upon seeing Horton pass by in a ship, "Now I've seen everything" and promptly shoots himself in the head. Mayzie also does a breathy Katharine Hepburn ("raaaaaaaa-hlly I do") at several points.
The moral of the story is "be responsible, even when it's difficult." This moral is established in two ways. First, Mayzie's demonstrated irresponsibility in leaving her egg for someone else to watch leads to her losing the implied benefit of her egg- a baby Mayzie. Second, Horton's demonstrated responsibility in keeping his promise to Mayzie by staying with the egg, even when it's hard to do so, gives him the benefit of a baby Horton hatching from the egg.
