The Sneetches

Josef Reuther
811

  The book "The Sneetches" by Dr Suess deals with two different groups of creatures, on the one hand the star bellied sneetches and on the other hand the sneetches with no stars on their bellies known as plain belly sneetches. The star bellied sneetches think that they are superior to the plain belly sneetches and so they prohibit the plain bellied sneetches from socially associating themselves with them.

 Sylvester a seperate creature comes into play with his "Star On" "Star Off" machines allowing the plain bellied sneetches to become like their more elite counter parts. Once all of the sneetches seem to be equal and all of them have stars, the original star bellied sneetches claim that having no stars is better than having stars on their bellies and so they all passed through the "Star Off" machine removing the stars off their bellies. The now plain belly sneetches are fixated with being superior over the other sneetches and want to be different from them and better. However the now newly star bellied sneetches want to be exactly like their opposites. From here on the two competing groups go through the machines again and again the original star bellied sneetches always wanting to be different and the other sneetches following to become just like them. In the end the sneetches are unable to remember who started of as a star bellied sneetch and who didn't. The sneetches are all at once struck by an epiphany that the sneetches are not very different from one another that really they are basically the same and that they can coexist in harmony.

  The story of the sneetches is very similar to the persecution of Jews during World War II and how Jews and Nazis were very similar they lived in the same towns and ate the same foods and were virtually indistinguishable people. Like the sneetches it presents us with a lesson that race and ethnicity should not be the markers dividing our societies. The original star bellied sneetches were initially competing with the plain bellied sneetches and believed that they were better than the others, however by the end of the book they realized that they should instead live in harmony with the other sneetches.

  As can be seen the sneetches who are initially competing with another and the star bellied sneetches who won't let the the other sneetches associate themselves with them because they feel superior learn realize that they almost exactly the same kind and should be able to peacefully coexist.