Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 28

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The Popular Culture Review

students if we deprive them of the opportunity to enjoy to the fullest
this, at times, rather subtle strip.
My last example, "Calvin and Hobbes", is in many ways the
most subtle and best of all. It has two principal characters, the first a
six-year-old lad who is the personification of the Puritan's
unregenerate man. He is the embodiment of the consequences of
original sin. His name interestingly enough is Calvin, a name not
entirely unrelated to his nature, nor is it a name without some
meaning in educated circles. His almost constant companion is a tiger,
life-sized and animate when just the two of them are present, small
and stuffed in the presence of a third person. The tiger's name is
Hobbes. His name, like that of his friend Calvin, is not without some
significance in the Western tradition. Hobbes has some of the
characteristics which his namesake wrote about and discussed. These
two names carry a certain intellectual baggage; they stand for specific
ideological positions and they were not chosen accidentally. Calvin
and his behavior are rooted in the Calvinist tradition, and Hobbes,
on occasion, is quite Hobbesian. To be sure, Hobbes the tiger is not
always completely Hobbesian, but then Hobbes the philosopher was
not always completely Hobbesian either. Two examples from the
strip should suffice. The two are in bed and Hobbes announces that he
is hungry; Calvin notes that it is a long time until breakfast. Hobbes
observes that it is a brave man who will sleep with a hungry tiger.
The last picture shows Calvin in front of the open refrigerator door,
asking if a tuna sandwich will be okay. The second example also
occurs at night in bed. Calvin asks several very Calvinist questions:
"I wonder why man was put on earth? What's our purpose? Why are
we here?" Hobbes gives a very Hobbesian answer: "Tigerfood," and
grins a very toothy grin. Calvin looks apprehensive. I am not
insisting that one need read the original Calvin and Hobbes to
understand the comic strip. I am strongly suggesting that a knowledge
of the originals and their thought makes the contemporary Calvin
and Hobbes more interesting.
I hope I have made my point on the pervasiveness of the
western tradition in our lives. I could, of course, cite other examples
such as Mother Goose and her dog Grimm and cat Attila, a strip with
a heroine named Ophelia Rosencrantz, or Prince Valiant and his
recent search for Prester John, but that might be academic "overkill."