Original artwork, not a still
The Cat in the Hat · 1957
The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house All that cold, cold, wet day.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The gloom of a wet afternoon is the trap that sets up the whole book: a child's boredom so total that a chaotic stranger is welcome. The simple, bouncing rhythm is how generations learned to read, and its opening is among the best-known first stanzas in children's books. People still quote it, cheerfully, whenever the weather turns grim.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for The Cat in the HatShow the scene
These are the opening lines of The Cat in the Hat (1957), the first page of the story. It is a rainy day, the children's mother is out, and a brother and his sister Sally sit at the window with nothing to do. Then the door bangs and the tall Cat in the red-and-white striped hat walks in, ready to entertain them whether they like it or not. Seuss wrote it as a lively answer to dull school primers like Dick and Jane, and said he built the story from the first rhyming pair he spotted on a limited word list, cat and hat.
Sources (1)
- Wikipedia: The Cat in the HatLead, Background and Plot sectionsReference checked
Context reviewed
