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Green Eggs and Ham

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Green Eggs and Ham (ISBN 0394800168) is a children's book by Dr. Seuss.

The title is a sort of pun. In the United States, "green eggs and ham" is a breakfast menu item in which normal eggs are cooked with spinach or some other green vegetable, and served with normal ham. Dr. Seuss's conceit was to imagine that the phrase describes naturally green eggs (that is, with green yolks) accompanied by green ham.

The story

Template:Spoiler There are two characters: one named Sam-I-am, and a second who is never named. Sam is filled with energy and enthusiasm; his opposite number is morose and irritable. The plot revolves around Sam-I-am's efforts to get his friend to try "green eggs and ham" (as described above). The friend refuses to eat the dish, and only wants to be left in peace. Sam-I-am goes through a variety of locations (house, car, tree) trying to persuade his friend to eat, but without success.

The triumphant conclusion of Seuss's tale occurs when Sam-I-am's friend, standing in shallow water after a train crash, surrounded by various people and beasts, finally agrees to try the dish and turns out to be a great enthusiast. The instant turnaround in the anonymous character's attitude is somewhat similar to that of the Grinch, whom Sam-I-am's friend physically resembles except in having floppy ears.

Words

Green Eggs and Ham is one of Seuss's "Beginner Books", written in a very simple vocabulary for beginning readers. The vocabulary of the text consists of just fifty different words, of which 48 are monosyllabic. A rumour has it that Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss's publisher, wagered $50 that Seuss could not write a book using only fifty words. [1] The bet came after Seuss completed The Cat in the Hat, in which he used 220. Despite Seuss's success, it is unclear whether Cerf ever paid the bet.

The tale is in the form of a so-called "cumulative" story, with a list of circumstances that gets repeated as it gets longer. Thus, one of Sam's friend's refusals goes:

I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I do not like them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

Cumulative stories are a traditional genre of English folklore, for instance in the tale "This is the House that Jack Built" or the folk song "Green grow the rushes, O".

The fifty words used are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, sam, Sam-I-am, say, see, so, thank, that, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

The meter of Green Eggs and Ham is a combination of trochaic and iambic tetrameter; for details, see Dr. Seuss's meters.

Drawings

Like many of Seuss's characters, Sam-I-am and his friend are ambiguous between people and animals; they are furry with large snouts, but stand upright, can speak, and have human facial expressions.

Sam-I-am's friend wears a tall black hat that imitates his body language: it startles, cringes, rises up indignant, etc. in synchrony with its owner.

The book also includes a number of Seuss's characteristic elaborate machines: there is a complex platter-presenting device, large artificial hands on poles to illustrate Here and There, a vehicle with a mysteriously-appearing door from which a goat emerges, and an astonishingly rickety railroad viaduct.

Reception

Green Eggs and Ham was published in 1960 and continues to be very popular. In fact, it is the fourth best selling children's hardcover book of all time[2], having sold over seven million copies up to 2004. In 1999, the National Education Association conducted an online survey of the 100 most popular children's books. On both the children's and the teachers' lists, Green Eggs and Ham was ranked third, just above another Dr. Seuss book, The Cat in the Hat.

The book is most often read to or by young children (one reviewer recommends ages 4-8), but web data suggest that it is also very popular among adults as well, many of whom fondly remember having encountered the book when they were little.

The book has been translated into a number of languages including Latin (Virent Ova! Virent Perna!).

Since the book is familiar to so many people, it has been adapted or otherwise referred to in many works of popular culture. For details, see Green Eggs and Ham in popular culture.

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