Horton Hatches an Egg was written with several thematic possibilities distinctly in the mind of Dr. Seuss—that is an assertion that can be made of any book by any author. Sometimes, however, an author will write something that explores a theme which does not even come into being—or at least does not enter the mainstream—until many years later. Such is the case with Horton, Mayzie and the egg.
Historical-based interpretations have led to analysis of the story as an allegory about America’s role as burgeoning caretaker superpower in the shadow of a massive European war about to explode into a World War. Expanded to a wider scope, the story has also been viewed as an affirmation of New Deal ideology which posits the radical notion that those who can help to take care of the need should view it not as an unwarranted imposition but as an earned responsibility. All those and others are true and speak to the age in which the story was composed, but social progress has over the ensuing decades transformed the story of Horton into that makes it perhaps more immediately relevant than ever.
Adoption at the time the book was written was still relatively rare and even controversial enough that being adopted was kept hidden and remains a secret from others, especially other kids. A stigma remain attached to being adopted until well past the date of publication. As that stigma disappeared, new possibilities of alternative parentage became possible. In the world of twentieth-century, it is entirely possible for the woman who actually gives have absolutely no genetic connection to the baby that was itself conceived by two adults who literally have never even met. (Possible, not typical, of course.) Imagine those parents reading about Horton to their kids at bedtime in the 1940’s were to be told this by a time traveler. Minds would be blowing out all around the country. Such is the stage of Seuss while writing his story. He could have no concept of how his story of an elephant sitting atop the egg of a bird that when it cracks open reveals a strange hybrid of the natural mother and the nurturing father: “An elephant-bird.”
The elephant-bird is an admittedly inelegant synonym for an example of a child conceived with the donated eggs of a mother and donated sperm of a father which carried to term by a third party, but legally and, for some, morally, there is little difference. Who is the real mother here? Does a father who merely donated sperm have any legal rights to fatherhood. Can a woman truly be called the “biological” mother of a child if she did not actually give birth? These are all tricky questions for those who study or are impact by such things. And while it may be easy for an outsider to say, yes, of course, a woman can be the biological mother without giving birth just as easily as a man can be the biological father without giving birth, but technically that is not really the same thing at all, is it?
Dr. Seuss obviously had no idea that he was laying the groundwork for an incredibly fertile metaphor for parental rights. That the book has become that very metaphor is easily indicated by the number of times his story has managed to make it into the official courtroom transcripts of legal cases. It is also a textbook example of how analysis of the meaning of a story is absolutely not dependent upon trying to assume what meaning the author was pursuing. In many cases, as in Horton Hatches the Egg, profound meaning can be attached with exists completely outside the possibility of authorial intent.
