Fox in Socks: the Marxist allegories in the book

 I have no explanation for this other than this is what Read Across America Day (March 2nd, aka Dr. Seuss’s birthday) does to me. Back to rpgs and crafts next week, probably. This is only mostly serious; I had fun writing it but ... well, read to the end. 

Marxist Allegories in Fox In Socks

In Dr. Seuss's classic children’s book, Fox in Socks, the Knox is dragged through multitudes of tongue twisters by the Fox. As time goes on and the tongue twisters get harder, the Knox becomes more annoyed, until he finally rises up against the Fox and pushes the Fox into one of the Fox's own tongue twisters. The Knox's experience, culminating in rebellion, is an allegory for the uprising of an oppressed proletariat against the Fox's establishment. 

The Fox represents a dictatorial regime, a government based on one's ability to rattle off tongue twisters. At the end of the Fox's second game, playing around with chicks, bricks, ticks, and tocks, the Knox states he cannot do these tricks, to which the Fox responds, "I'm so sorry, / Mr. Knox, sir. / Here's an easy / game to play" (Seuss 17-18). The Fox's response to an impassioned plea to stop is a mere apology, meant to subdue the Knox's anger before cruelly throwing him into another 'game'. The Fox clearly barely means the apology; his face in the illustration shows only the barest hint of regret and he immediately continues into another set of tongue twisters. He sets the Knox up to fail, by giving him a tricky tongue twister without help and without second chances, testing the Knox's patience. The Fox again blames the Knox for failure when he says "Now / come now. Come now. / You don't have to / be so dumb now..." (45). By calling the Knox dumb, the Fox passes the responsibility for success onto the Knox. This disguises the inherent flaws in the system; namely, that the Fox insists that success requires fulfilling a massively unfair set of criteria that rewards those who can already recite perfectly and accurately. This represents the establishment preventing the working class from succeeding, by blaming the working class for its inability to acquire resources necessary to move up in the world. The Fox's system is similar to Marxist definitions of the establishment, which will inherently lead to revolt. 

Indeed, the Knox soon perpetrates a rebellion reminiscent of proletariat uprisings. By midway through the book, the Knox is frustrated with the Fox, shouting "Stop it! Stop it! / That's enough, sir. / I can't say / such silly stuff, sir" (48). He had been annoyed before, but he now begins to speak out about his situation, hoping for change. However, he cannot make change just by speaking out. The Fox continues to throw him into harrowing games without regard for his dislike. However, at the end of the tweetle beetle game, the Knox revolts, throwing the Fox into the beetle battle bottle: "Fox in socks, / our game is done, sir. / Thank you for / a lot of fun, sir" (61). The Knox's act of rebellion is small, but powerful. He rises up and turns a disadvantageous situation for him into an opportunity to overthrow an oppressive dictator keeping him from succeeding. This is an allegory for Marxist theories of the rise of the proletariat, because the only way the Knox can escape the situation is by open, armed, revolt. His revolt removes the government, the Fox, from power and symbolically destroys its power over him. 

The story is classic; the government sets the proletariat up to fail, at which point the proletariat decides enough is enough, and overthrows the government in armed revolts. The government may be a tricky fox and the proletariat an individual of unknown species with anger issues, but the end result is still the same -- uprising and the death of the government, followed by rule by the people. 

Or I could be reading too much into a children's book. Which is probably more likely.