Butter Battle Books : Satire Of The Butter Battle Book

The Cold War was a clash between the ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union, even though there was no actual fighting between them, it still had a drastic impact on the lives of people who were alive at the time. As a result of experiencing the Cold War some creators used it as influence for literary works. For instance, The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss and Over the Hedge directed By Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick, reveal the political nature experienced by the opposing sides during the Cold War. Satirical devices in the forms of parody and exaggeration are used to further convey the message the creators want the audience to understand.

Conflict may be the result of scare resources, incompatible interests, norms, values and so on. Conflict has not only negative function. Social conflict can serve to change a social system and at the same time it may lead to innovation and technological advancement. Similarly, inter group conflict helps to bind the people belonging to a particular group together. Conflict may help to maintain equilibrium in the system and it may lead to a new system as well. Democratic governments, international organizations like UN, international laws and other features of the modern world have been very much successful in preventing and diffusing the conflicts in safe manner. These features have allowed the people to meet their ends and goals without use of destructive

Throughout history, there have been numerous battles that ended in death and destruction but none have been as potentially disastrous as the Cold War which even now, is a favored topic in all kinds of literature. Dr. Suess' The Butter Battle Book shares many similarities with events and people from the Cold War and should be read by children so they can understand and learn from a story that grabs their attention.

As previously stated there are many similarities between the Cold war and Dr. Seuss’s Butter Battle Book. The biggest being that the Zooks and the Yooks clearly represent the Soviet Union and the United States. In the book the Zooks eat their bread with the butter side down, while the Yooks eat it with the butter side up. The contradictions between the two is a satirical representation of Russia who were communist and the United States who were anti communist. Each disliked the opposing side very much, due to the way they wanted to govern themselves; like the way the Zooks and Yooks disliked each other due to the way they wanted to eat their bread .

The Butter Battle Book puts a simplistic view in the real conflict of the Cold War. Dr. Seuss makes the “battle” out to be as simple as the way someone butters their bread. In reality the conflict was about the freedom of millions of people and the nuclear arms race. In an article from The New Republic, the author outlines a few key differences. First off, the conflict was about something that is quite a bit more important than the side we butter our bread on. It involved the freedom of millions. Second, the wall that is in the book between the two groups grew on its own. The wall in the Cold War was built to keep the West out of the Communist Bloc. The final thing is that in the book the opposing groups do not seem to want to force their buttering habits onto the other side. During the Cold War, both

Consisting of 44 years of violence and civil unrest from 1947 to 1991, the Cold War was a huge turning-point in history. The Cold War however was a war of avoidance, not combat. Defence systems were heavily funded as deterrence to actual war, the belief being a risk of mutual annihilation would be too great to be the side to make the first move. However, the Cold War caused a large variety of conflict and civil unrest around the world, such as the Korean War, Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The War split the world into supporting either the United States, or the USSR (Soviet Union). Both superpowers were associated with two very different political systems; Capitalism and Communism. The Soviets were very concerned about the spread

For example, in the second to last stanza, it says, “Drop this bomb on the Zooks just as fast as you can. I have ordered all Yooks to stay safe underground while the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo is around,” meaning that the Yooks themselves, know just how hazardous and on-edge the situation is getting, yet they refuse to back down. In addition, in the last stanza, old Vanltch is saying, “I’ll blow you into pork and wee beans! I’ll butter-side-up you to small smithereens!” emphasizing just how strong his weapon was and that the Yooks should be afraid, very afraid. It may seem as though Seuss is being a wee bit dramatic, but he is only delivering the cold, hard truth that a situation like this was happening in the real world (the Nuclear Arms Race) and that we should all take notice and try to appease it.

The Cold war was a time of hardships in the mid 1900s and continued having a war between the two superpowers for which would have more of a sphere of influence on the nations worldwide. Sphere of influence, nuclear weapons, and propaganda were main ways on how the Cold war had started and were a few of the many “weapons” used in alternating ways for the war. Cold War began in many ways, but a few main ones were the nuclear weapon warfare, the sphere of influence among the two superpowers, the Soviets and the United States and the ways the two nations used propaganda to promote their ideologies on their citizens and others to gain influence. Nuclear weapons are a main source of conflict between the U.S.S.R and the U.S in the cold war.

During WWII there was a power struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. Then after the atomic bomb that the U.S. sent to Japan it was heightened because of the threat of the nuclear war. This then was the beginning of the Cold War. It was the struggle between two world superpowers. Although the bomb was the “beginning” of the Cold War there were many other causes to this war. For example the two both had different political systems. The U.S. is based on democracy, capitalism and freedom. U.S.S.R. is based on dictatorship and communism and control which was a big no to America because they feared of a communist attack. In the end the two allied forces broke up. Truman also disliked Stalin which was another

Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book During the Nuclear Arms Race, many people spoke out. Most preached against war, while others were for it. In Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book, instead of speaking out, he wrote about it in a satire. In the mid 1950’s, tensions were high across the world.

Dr.Seuss was the author of The Butter Battle Book. He best used writing craft to convey meaning because he used metaphor, parallel structure, and irony. His easy to read and equally funny children’s book is about having different views than someone else, fighting, and war. Throughout Seuss’ The Butter Battle Book, he uses the craft of allusion to point out the silliness of the Cold War. The book is mocking the Cold War and it’s events, therefore creating the craft of allusion, along with making it more light-hearted by giving crazy names to weapons that the Yooks had made.

Although, the Cold War was avoidable due to the fact that better negotiating efforts could have been made and we exasperated the tension with the Soviet Union as a result of our threats, it was inevitable though that the United States and the Soviet Union went to war in the Cold War. The Cold War was inevitable due to immense differences between the Soviet Union and the United Sates, the Soviet Union’s mistrust in the United States, and the Soviet Union’s unreasonable stance. Even though, the countries did not physically fight The Cold War was a foreseeable feud between the Soviet Union and The United States in response to the tension and conflicts that mounted after the end of World War II.

The Cold War: A New History written by John Lewis Gaddis (a professor at Yale University who wrote other books such as The United States and the Origins of the Cold War and Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security) delivers a summarized, yet skewed interpretation of what had happened during the era known as the Cold War. Throughout the book, the author attempts to provide history of the Cold War, while adding in generalizations, incomplete facts, as well as flat out bias.

The Cold War, the post World War II tensions between the Soviet Union and The United States of America between 1945 and 1990, can be looked at as an inevitable occurrence that resulted from two powerful countries attempting to overcome one another. In the book Global Capitalism, Jeffry Frieden, states “conflict may have been an inevitable consequence of the tension that ensued as each superpower faced the unwelcome ascendance of the other” (Frieden 263).

Additionally, the author interprets the chaos during cold war as “a drama of states confronting states, balancing states, and aligning with 1