The Very Hungry Caterpillar is, on a the surface, merely a sweet story about a very hungry caterpillar and his journey of consumption and metamorphosis.
The author had an entirely different meaning in mind.
TVHC is a story about the author's struggle with their sexual and gender identity, preceded by years of substance abuse and high-risk sexual encounters.
The story begins with the caterpillar hatching from an egg. The Egg is both vaginal and penile, resulting from the combination of ovum and sperm. Within the author, they realized their own sense of vagina and peepee, causing a cognitive dissonance in their own identity.
TVHC's insatiable hunger for food can be seen as a metaphor for a deep longing to explore and understand one's own identity. It reflects the desire to consume knowledge about gender and self-discovery.
TVHC starts by eating through one red apple. This symbolizes the early stages of puberty, menstrual blood, and singular s*x (masturbation). The fact that future foods continue to grow in number and frequency shows the author's increasing libido, but also a shame cycle that is both calmed and exacerbated by continued high-risk exploration.
When TVHC eats through two pears, this symbolizes their first sexual encounter with two people. The green color of the pears symbolizes marijuana abuse, as well as the color of young, supple growth of a plant and the loss of the author's innocence. Since this is the second day of TVHC's life, it can be inferred that this sexual encounter occurred early in life, most likely in abuse as a minor, setting the stage for a life of sexual confusion and impulsiveness.
As the numbers of food increase, so too do the sexual partners. As visualized in the artwork, the penetration of TVHC through food symbolizes the penetration the author experienced as the sexually receiving partner, and the resulting holes in the food represent the continued diminishing of their psyche and worth.
After the numerical scaling of partners achieves maximum, TVHC binges in many different singular foods, much like the author's series of promiscuous encounters. The pace of the text is at a crescendo, the sexual encounters frequent and fleeting.
The Cocoon is not a transformative moment, but one of death and burial. Death of the Soul. Death of the Vagina. Death of the Peepee. Death of the Self.
The emergence of The Butterfly is the emergence of Denialism. Unable to face the damage to his body and soul from illicit drugs and STDs, the author adopted a new persona in order to dissociate from their true self. It is too late however, and so a short-lived life of denialism is all that is possible, until TVHC lays a new egg for the cycle of abuse to continue.
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Immediately lost!
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Eric Carle-bros.... how do we cope with this?
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Good on you for getting through this. Most readers of Carle struggle to comprehend most any of it!
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This insightful elucidation nearly brought me to tears. As a gender non-conforming, queer, neurodivergent AFAB (suburban white woman who forces xirself to be bisexual) your analysis truly spoke to me. I will be bringing it up to my therapist which my parents' insurance pays for. Thank you for bringing attention to this important memoir.
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Thank you for calling out your privilege. I am also all those things but black and in prison for a crime I didn't commit due to racism.
But I'm glad you could see through your biases and listen to a Black wxmxn 🩷
!nonchuds
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The next step is killing myself so there's one less person of privilege oppressing innocent minorities. I'm still building up the courage so any encouragement is appreciated. Also, I'm sorry you're in prison--stay safe plzzz! <3
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I feel like the book from my childhood just got sodomized.
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it's obviously about capitalism you stupid fascist
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I misclicked by accident, sorry.
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u aint seent sorry yet, Jack PERIODT
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My kid loves this book
Their score: 10/10
My score: 6/10 (a bit on the pretentious side, pictures are nice but I don't know how to read most of the words yet)
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I'm sorry, but I couldn't find any information to support the interpretation you've provided. From what I found, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” is a 1969 children's picture book designed, illustrated, and written by American children's author and illustrator Eric Carle. The plot follows a very hungry caterpillar that eats a variety of foods before pupating and emerging as a butterfly, and incorporates elements that contribute to juvenile education, such as counting, the days of the week, food, and a butterfly's life cycle. Since its publication it has sold more than 50 million copies, been translated into more than 60 languages, won various awards, and been adapted for television. It has been lauded as “one of the greatest childhood classics of all time,” and has won praise for its iconic art style, featuring collage artwork and holes in the pages where the caterpillar “ate” through, that was innovative for its time.
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Congrats, you win the media illiteracy award!
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This is the difference between looking at the words and pictures on a stack of paper and READING.
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OBESE
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I always felt that the Butterfly was a repression of the Catepillers non-conformance to societal expectations to gender roles. The Caterpillar forces a transformation to simply be able to survive in a patriarchal cis gendered world - it's really sad and this has always bothered me.
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No u
Snapshots:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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no sweaty, the caterpillar is born with a deep hunger, a yearning, a craving. For what u may ask? the caterpillar does not yet know.
it eats and eats, not for sustenance, but to fulfil something. something internal - something profound. something it can't quite understand.
no matter how much it eats, that longing desire is never found. that is until it stops eating and starts looking inward, to discover how to liberate itself from this yearning.
the caterpillar is now in the cocoon locked away from food and ephemeral temptations. only in deep introspection can it find truth.
what is this truth? the caterpillar is dysphoric.
it sheds its old body away and transitions into a butterfly. it emerges from the cocoon fully actualised as its true self. with metamorphosis complete, the hunger is gone. it can finally present itself to the world in a manner that feels cute and valid.
Yes, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a transgender allegory.
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Now do when Mickey Mouse deliberately fished for a critically endangered species to feed to his cat
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Mickey_Goes_Fishing
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The Very Hungry Caterpillar is peak socialist literature. It critiques the current capitalist tendencies of overconsumption and its reliance on unsustainable, infinite growth, whilst also telling a compelling story. The arguments it lays down are very profoind, yet at the same time presented in a manner so simple that even a child could understand it. The story itself is breathtaking as well- the use of voice and other storytelling techniques allow the author to set a deep armosphere and completely immerse you in the character of a Very Hungry Caterpillar
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Lmao I like the holes in the pages that little neighbor was huuungy lol
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