Why the Grinch Stole Christmas with Grant Wenburg
Have you ever wondered why the Grinch stole Christmas? Our son’s 5th
grade teacher, Mrs. Brennan, posed this question to kids in the class and asked them to write a persuasive essay about why they believe the Grinch is either evil or misunderstood.
On the Voice of Influence podcast one of the key questions we explore is why are people the way they are? How can we motivate others who may be closed off to us?
Though Grant’s essay doesn’t go on to suggest how to approach the Grinch, it does give one food for thought. Perhaps there is a physiological or psychological reason for the Grinches among us.
Here is Grant Wenburg with his essay, “A Small Heart.”
A Small Heart
By: Grant Wenburg
The Grinch, the evil, the horrible Christmas stealing monster, or so we thought. Could it be that the Grinch, the green mischievous monster the Grinch, is just misunderstood? Well, you’re about to find out! Great Lead!!!
My first reason that the Grinch is misunderstood is bullying. If we look at the Jim Carie (live action movie of the how the Grinch Stole Christmas) we see what seems to be bullying at its worst. The other kids make fun of him for almost everything that he does. For example, they make fun of him for how he looks. This seems like a classic case of treating others the way you want to be treated. The whos treated him like trash, so the Grinch got back.
Sometimes people call the Grinch mean to everyone and heartless but it’s much more than that. For example he has a dog or that he doesn’t hate Cindy Lou as much because she didn’t make fun of him when he was a kid and she doesn’t make as much noise as the adults. (witch I’ll talk about more in the next paragraph) The Grinch doesn’t have a reason to be mean to her except that her family is loud.
Proving that the grinch isn’t heartless, his heart is just small.
Now for the final and most important reason, the Grinch’s small heart. The Grinch isn’t the only one with a small heart, some people in real life have small hearts too. Most people that have small hearts have what is called, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or C.F.S. The main symptom of C.F.S is in the name, fatigue. If we look at the Grinch then we see he checks off that box because he is- -definitely skipping arm day, and leg day, and abe day! Another symptom is not being able to sleep very well. That would explain why he is so grumpy, so there’s a check on that box.
The most important symptom in our case is this, being more sensitive to external stimuli like noise, and what do we see in the first animated movie of How The Grinch Stole Christmas? To quote from the Grinch himself he says, “the worst thing I hate of all, is all the noise, noise, noise, noise!”
Now with the final check on the box we have a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. To summarize the Grinch has a small heart so he has fatigue and is tired all the time, and also hates noise, so what can we conclude from this? Well if he already has a hard time sleeping because of his C.F.S, then the who’s don’t stop making a racket, well of course he’s going to be angry at them, and on one night on one day of the year, he just didn’t want to be miserable. Then also he doesn’t even succeed, he feels guilty and brings it all back!
Just remember, it’s not “that” the Grinch stole Christmas, it’s why!