Horton Hears A WHO

Question

Why doesn’t the kangaroo believe Horton? What justifies her belief that a person could not be on the dust speck?

How does Horton try to convince the kangaroo of the existence of a person on the dust speck?

If you were Horton what would you say to convince the kangaroo?

If they didn’t believe you, what would you do?

Why do they consider Horton to be foolish? Is what Horton knows really nonsense?

What reasons do the animals have for thinking that Horton is just speaking nonsense?

Horton knows the truth, but how come the monkeys can’t know?

What do the animals think will happen if they hid the dust speck so Horton can’t find it?

Will that prove that to Horton that his belief is not true?

The animals have had quite enough and decide they are going to boil the speck and tie Horton up. Horton says that the Who’s can prove they are there. What do the animals think they will accomplish by roping and caging Horton?

Why does Horton say he can do to get them to believe him that there are persons on the speck?

How can the Whos prove their existence?

The Who’s try to make themselves heard but the kangaroo denies hearing anything. Finally, the Who’s try again and they are heard! Why does the kangaroo tell Horton that she didn’t hear any voices and he didn’t either?

Why does she think he didn’t hear any voices?

When you know something, how do you prove it to someone else? Do you have to prove to know it’s true?

Just because you think you know something, does that mean everyone else has to know the agree? How do you know if somebody knows what you know?

The Whos are finally heard. Is hearing believing? Do you have to hear, or see, or feel something to believe it or know it’s true?

Give an example of something you know but that you can’t justify with your senses? How did you come to know that thing?

Answer 1

Horton’s situation pits a personal experience against a shared community experience. This conflict appears in a number of literary/real situations: the person who sees a great injustice to which her community seems blind, for example a lone activist speaking against slavery or de jure segregation; the blind man who refuses to give credence to views that speak against what he feels with his own hands; the man who experiences a miracle that was not witnessed by others.

Geisel intended the first comparison. He had recently changed his views toward the Japanese people, and he wanted his fellow Americans to follow him in giving up his hatred for the “enemy” and embracing them with compassion as fellow human beings.

The second comparison comes from “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” an old fable that isn’t really about blind men; it is about us. It is all too human for us to form hardened beliefs from our own experience, refusing to allow that our beliefs formed from our own limited experience need to be open, in humility, to modification in light of facts experienced by others.

The third comparison hearkens back to Hume’s argument against miracles, where common experience of regularities in nature is allowed to overrule any personal experience to the contrary. 

Geisel’s story is closer to the third comparison. While Geisel intended the story to speak against prejudice, Horton’s acquaintances never exhibit prejudice against the residents of Whoville. As soon as they hear the collective shouts of the Whos, they show them respect and caring. The conflict in the story arises because they refuse to believe Horton’s account that Whos exist. Their prejudice is toward Horton’s odd behavior, which they count as odd only because they do not believe Horton’s explanation for his behavior. 

The reader is shown Horton’s experience of hearing the Whos, but his non-Who acquaintances accept only their own experience of the world. However, unlike individual blind men, Horton’s disbelieving acquaintances are not locked into their individual subjective experiences. His acquaintances have a shared experience of the world. They see nature and reality the same way, and none of them can hear a Who, so they conclude that Horton does not hear a Who either. 

Note that Horton’s experience does not contradict the experience of his acquaintances; it only goes beyond their experience. What Horton’s experience contradicts is their (deductively invalid) conclusion that such things simply cannot happen. 

Similarly, a witness to a miracle does not contradict our common experience of regularities in nature; the witness contradicts only our (deductively invalid) conclusion that an irregular event cannot happen. 

Geisel resolved this conflict by finally giving Horton’s acquaintances the experience of hearing the Whos. It is here that Geisel brings the story around to his intended understanding. Horton’s acquaintances cannot hear the Whos until they show the patience to wait and give the residents of Whoville a chance to he heard. Similarly, no matter how obviously human another people may be, their common humanity will not be perceived until people choose to listen to them, to give them a chance to show their common humanity. 

That is what Geisel was asking his fellow Americans to do—listen and give the Japanese people a chance to be perceived as something more that the “Yellow Peril” or the enemy from the Second World War. It wasn’t an easy message to bring when the horrors and personal losses of the war were still fresh in people’s memories, but Geisel makes it all but impossible for the reader not to root for Horton and for the survival of the Whos, and, so, to root for any people not being heard by those with the power to harm the unheard.