Reading ourselves: the genius of the Monster at the end of this Book
I no longer have a toddler, so I’m a bit late in writing this post. But then again, the Muppets are timeless. This not only includes their works for television and film, but also their classic book, the Monster at the end of this Book. The book has of course been reviewed many times, but I would like to share a psychosocial perspective on reading ourselves in it.
The profoundness of simplicity
A quick synopsis, which I hope does not spoil the book for anyone. (If you can read this blog, then you can read the book in under 2 minutes.)
Right from the first pair of pages, Grover notices the book’s title and announces his fear of monsters, one of whom is presumed to be at the end of the book. On the second pair of pages, he attempts to conspire with the reader to avoid the monster, by requesting the reader not to turn any pages. On the third, through ninth, pair of pages, Grover goes to increasing lengths to stop the reader from turning the page. Finally, of course, the last pages come, and the monster is revealed to be: no one else. The only monster present is Grover himself. He admits embarrassment over his fear.
The text is beautifully simple. Grover announces his fear, implicates the reader in both the fear and the humor that accompanies it in parallel, and then learns to face and understand his fear with the reader. This simplicity is not just effective for speaking to toddlers. It also keeps the emotional resonance centered, with specific words and images to bring that out.
I will now call out certain factors about how the book works and what the book does.
Calling out cultural assumptions
The first, and perhaps primary, vehicle of this story is its use of cultural assumptions. To start off with, the idea of a Monster itself. While a monster is broadly a projection of a distortion or alteration in ourselves, we often think about it as something dangerous. And dangerous things, of course, feel scary.
The next cultural assumption is that of avoidance. Grover immediately identifies avoidance as the way to handle the monster. There’s a monster; I feel scared; therefore, I should avoid it.
The third cultural assumption that I recognize is a bit more subtle. It is in how we understand our emotions. For the paired pages 3 through 9, Grover’s fear is set against the reader’s action of turning the page. This battle is described as one of strength: emotions, particularly fear, are understood as being strong. This is one of the most important assumptions people come in with when meeting with me. People are scared, not just of the situations they are facing, but of their own emotions, fearing that their emotions are too powerful for them to handle.
The book’s mechanical device
Part of the book’s genius is how the authors use the basic, automatic mechanic of reading a book: to read a book, you turn to the next page until there are no more pages. Even 1-2 year-olds have learned this concept. This becomes, then, all the strength that is required to face the fear. No matter what Grover sets up as a block, the child turns the page, and it is overcome.
Not only that. Toddlers sense the humor of the contrast between this simple action and Grover’s response. I turn a page – Grover shouts in horror! This action-response is a classic play device between adults and toddlers, and so it also puts the fear into a familiar level for the child. Fear can be understood and managed. In perspective, it can even be funny.
Internal perceptions are creative expression, not external reality: Grover’s efforts to block the reader
Page by page, from pairs 3 through 9, Grover puts up increasingly intense walls. Ropes, a fence, a brick wall. Grover believes these to be increasingly strong. After all, that’s what the words and drawings show. Even more, Grover’s belief in its growing intensity corresponds to a belief in the growing destruction of knocking it down: he says, “… you not only get us closer to the MONSTER at the end of this book, but you make a terrible mess!” Nevertheless, again the mechanic of turning the page reveals these to be nothing more than words and images. By the following pages, both are gone.
This is a beautiful metaphor for our thoughts and beliefs, feelings, and sensations. Our minds call them up, and they exert their power in helping us to see and understand. But they are not the same as actions. No matter how big or how strong a thought or feeling is, when it is no longer relevant, it will be gone. On a smaller scale, this also sets up toddlers to understand the wonders of storytelling: we can create anything there. We can even grapple with our deepest fears, and we remain safe.
Reading ourselves: we do it to ourselves, we do
Additionally, these concepts – the ropes, fence, and bricks, along with Grover’s efforts to plead with the reader – can represent the variety of strategies people use to avoid. We try to talk ourselves out of what we are feeling. Some engage in compulsions. Many do rituals or superstitions. Most distract ourselves sometimes, and then obsess or ruminate at other times. The book can help us recognize that these can be wonderful tools to understand our world, but they do not actually address our challenges. We must inevitably make a choice of how to act (and as the band Rush famously said, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”).
The grand metaphor: The monster and reading ourselves
This is a book with a clear message. Grover is the monster. Is he scary? No. The children reading the book will have seen Grover on Sesame Street as sweet, inquisitive, and adorable. The subtitle of the book is “starring lovable, furry old Grover.” So then, why were we scared? Not because of a specific scary thing, but because of the unknown. The fear is ours, not the monster’s. We fear the unknown; we fear uncertainties, and potentials. And by working through them, page by page, we can meet them and deal with them. Books progress; events unfold. We can make the choice to live our lives, fears and all.
Conclusion
I really appreciate Sesame Workshop giving kids a straightforward, lived experience of this reflection and process. A huge portion of the work I do with people is directly about this. People who are facing challenges, whether potentially partially controllable or not, and turning them on themselves through avoidance. Challenges like how do I communicate with my spouse, or my coworkers? Or, how do get enough sleep, or eat well, or get any time to myself when I am feeling overworked between my job and my kids and all these other responsibilities? Or, I want to do more with my life but I have had this and that setback, what if I fail again? Just like Grover, we may avoid it by seeing it as an external monster that’s just too scary. Or even seeing ourselves as the monster, and considering ourselves too scary to work with.
Author Jon Stone is channeling James Baldwin’s famous saying, written in 1962 about Americans facing the complexity of our national story: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Because whatever the challenge is, its meaning is only true in so far as we, individually and/or collectively (depending on the specific challenge – most are both) make it true.
Post-thought: Turning toddlers into torturers?
I’ve heard a criticism that the book’s mechanic turns the toddler into Grover’s torturer. An important point. If so, then perhaps my job as a psychologist is to torture people? I set people up to cry. To feel scared. Sometimes, their imagined monster is, in fact, themselves. Other times, it is someone else, or the faceless machines of our social systems. But in the end, no matter how big or small, no matter how internal or external, all fear can be faced. And even though not all obstacles can be overcome, fears (and other emotions) do not need to be overcome. They can be approached and understood.
The toddler is not teasing Grover. The toddler didn’t say, “I’m going to keep turning pages and make you face a horrific monster.” Grover came in with this fear already. The toddler helps Grover listen to his fear, rather than avoiding it. Our emotions are not dangerous. They never are.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have left such an important nugget to the post script: the last line. In small font on the final page, Grover says, “Oh, I am so embarrassed….” We are not inflicting pain on Grover by making him feel embarrassed. Quite the contrary: Grover’s embarrassment is the mechanism by which he learns that he can face the fear the next time. This embarrassment is the feeling of enlightenment. His recognition is where the real strength lies. And of course this message is for us, as well. Just as we accept that Grover can make a silly mistake and we still adore him, we can learn to accept ourselves with our own ups and downs.