The Cat in the Hat . . More Like "The Fish in the Bowl"

The Cat in the Hat by Dr.Seuss



The Cat in the Hat begins on a rainy day. The narrator and Sally sat and stared out the window being bored out of their head. This reminds me of my rainy days. It becomes boring and all you could do was to stay home. Would you think it be a dream come true to have a cat showed up on your own doorstep on a rainy day. Well, the narrator and Sally had that dream come true, the cat in the hat showed up on their doorstep. This was when he unexpectedly came into the house and the fish started to tell the cat and the children that the cat shouldn't come inside the house. The cat shouldn't be in the house when the mother is not home. I choose to analysis the fish because the fish play the role of parents. I remember in class having a discussion about how stranger should not enter the house in this case the stranger is the cat. Other discussion was about how teenager tends to have party and not let their parent know about it. Everyone wants to have their own fun once in a while as long as they clean up after their mess. But chances are that once in a while people get caught. The fish showed superego because he have his belief of right and wrong. I can indicate this because of his expression and his action. In the beginning of the book he tells the cat and the children that the cat should not be in the house. The fish expression was serious. He seemed to be the parent in the book while the mother is not home. The fish knows that things will go wrong if the cat come into the house. Throughout the entire book the fish always have a certain expression on his face. On pg 25 the fish said "Look what you did! Now look at this house!. . . You get out of this house" he was pointing to the cat while he said this and the cat had a sad expression on. I can tell from this image that the fish have anger in his voice because of his looks. The fish effect on others showed responsibility. If the fish did not showed this emotion toward the cat I think the children would just let the cat do whatever the cat wanted to do. Throughout the whole book the fish was the only person who seems more responsible and worry. At the end he was the fish one to notice that the mother was on the way home. The fish doesn't like things to be messy. This takes us into the fish actions. "Do I like this? Oh no! I do not. This is not a good game." (pg 23) the fish didn’t like what the cat is doing inside their house. When the cat introduced them to thing one and thing two the fish had a worried face on. This type of actions and behavior support the fish character as being superego. As discussed in class the only time when you could see a happy face on the fish was at the end. When he knows that everything will be cleaned and back to how it was from the beginning. It was a relief expression. The fish characteristic represents moral and conscience. The behavior of the cat seemed to not care about the effect of his own cause. Instead he care about rather the kid was having fun or not. With the fish telling the children each time that the cat shouldn’t be in the house, it takes away their fun which showed that the fish speech made impact on their own decision with the cat. Each time when the fish tells the cat and the children that it was wrong to let the cat inside the house the cat comes up with new ideas. Sometimes children do things more just to make their parents have headache even though their parents disapprove it. The fish private thoughts and feelings showed that he did not like the cat one bit. He knew it was wrong from the start to let the cat inside the house. Each of these reasons and details supports my main argument because it indicates the fish attitude, looks, action etc. throughout the book.