Summary
The Grinch sews together a Santa Claus hat and coat for himself. He decides that his dog, Max, will be his reindeer and he attaches a horn to his head. Then he heads down to Who-ville on his decrepit sleigh. When he approaches the first house, he climbs up to the roof and slides down the chimney. He gets stuck a few times, but eventually makes it to the bottom, where he grabs the stockings hanging from the fireplace and shoves them into his empty bag.
The Grinch continues to empty the house of all its presents and decorations. He goes to the kitchen and takes the food for the feast out of the refrigerator. As he is in the middle of stuffing the Christmas tree up the chimney, a little girl named Cindy-Lou Who comes out of her room and asks the Grinch (who she thinks is Santa) why he is taking their tree. The Grinch lies, saying he has to fix one of the lights. He gets Cindy-Lou Who a cup of water and sends her back to bed before taking the tree with him, along with the last log in the fireplace.
Analysis
With the Grinch's plan in full effect, the story emphasizes how thoroughly he wants to eliminate Christmas by providing details about every item he steals from the first Who house. In an amusing twist, the Grinch is compared to a type of inverse Santa Claus: not only does he dress himself in Santa's clothing, but he acts just as if he were Santa (of course, he is taking presents rather than dispensing them). He enters the house by coming down the chimney, and takes care to be secretive and stealthy in the way he travels about the house. However, the Grinch's action is likened to that of a snake or a serpent, with the narrator describing his movements with words like "slither" and "slunk." These descriptions emphasize the Grinch's deftness but also his duplicity, as snakes are frequently associated with deception and malice.
When the Grinch is interrupted by Cindy-Lou Who, his theft of the presents comes to a pause as he experiences the innocence, wonder, and kindness from the only Who with whom he interacts during the whole story. Cindy-Lou Who is described as a two-year-old girl who leaves her bed in the middle of the night for a cup of water. The story emphasizes her innocent nature by having her question the Grinch ("Santa") why he is taking their Christmas tree. The Grinch lies to her, of course, affirming the parallelism between him and a duplicitous serpent. However, Cindy-Lou Who throws the Grinch's behavior into stark relief as she represents the wholesomeness of Christmas that the Grinch attempts to destroy. In fact, in many film adaptations of the story, Cindy-Lou Who becomes a central character who befriends the Grinch and encourages him to join the Who community.
