Crime, Punishment and the Ethical Dilemma of Curious George
I. Transgression and Compensatory Justice
Civilization, we are taught to believe, is built upon a foundation of law, order and ethical imperatives that compel individual persons to cooperate with one another in pursuit of the common good. In practice, this supposition supports little if any actual weight. If history teaches us anything, it is that “civilization” (to borrow a phrase from Robert Anton Wilson) is what you can get away with.
This theme pops up in some of the most unlikely corners of popular culture. The other evening, for example, I ran headlong into it while Daddy read to me – perhaps for the forty-seventh time – Curious George at the Aquarium. As I listened, it truly began to dawn upon me that nearly the entire Curious George oeuvre isn’t simply a series of tales about an inquisitive little monkey. Rather, it can be read as a sequential meditation on the fragility of the social contract that theoretically governs our understanding of crime, punishment and social order as a whole.
For those unfamiliar with CG at the Aquarium, the major plot points may be quickly summarized. While visiting the city aquarium with his friend (owner?) the “Man in the Yellow Hat,” George becomes curious about the many exhibits and animals there are to see. Thoughtlessly (?), Yellow Hat leaves George unattended for a brief period in order to conduct business of his own. Almost immediately, George wanders off to investigate the many sights and sounds of the aquarium, antagonizes a sand crab and engages in a variety of other types of reckless behavior.
George’s adventure reaches its climax when he breaks into the penguin exhibit. After amusing himself by interfering with what could only be a carefully-regulated habitat intended for rare and delicate polar creatures, the monkey is spotted by staff members who then raise the hue and cry. George attempts to bolt and in the process leaves a door open for all the penguins to escape. In the ensuing chaos, a baby penguin nearly drowns while unattended by its parents and unobserved by the aquarium staff. George’s serendipitous rescue of the penguin chick is noticed by a child, who brings the fact to the attention of the director of the aquarium. Inexplicably, the director applauds George’s heroism and makes him an honorary staff member of the facility.
Like the greater part of the Curious George canon, Aquarium follows a deceptively simple and familiar narrative pattern: (1) George is left unsupervised by Yellow Hat; (2) he is presented with an opportunity to exercise his insatiable curiosity and thus creates mischief; (3) the situation spins rapidly out of control as a result of his actions; (4) George salvages the situation by helping to contain or solve the problem; (5) George is rewarded for his “help” or is otherwise let off the hook for the problem he caused.
While many, no doubt, find Aquarium to be a charming and light-hearted romp, is worth pointing out that these narratives throw the ethical underpinnings of civic order so seriously into question as to render meaningless the fundamental concepts of “good” and “bad.” As the books consistently reiterate when introducing George, he is “a good little monkey, and always very curious” (emphasis added). The question is, “good” in what way? Can we attribute “goodness” to an individual who is either unwilling or unable to observe the most basic dictates of the social contract? And would the same principle not also apply to me whenever I happen to unspool the entire toilet paper roll because I’m feeling “curious?” The matter is further complicated by narrative details suggesting that George is not without a sense of right and wrong, and therefore by necessity bears the weight of responsibility. Assuming that George has no ethical compass to steer by, why would he then attempt to flee when spotted in the penguin habitat by the aquarium staff? No – that dog, as they say, won’t hunt.
It is difficult to escape the sense that Aquarium illustrates a strange and distorted view of “compensatory justice.” Said another way, the narrative suggests that the system of civic law can be transgressed at will so long as the transgressor subsequently mitigates or neutralizes the disorder caused by his actions. From this perspective justice and its framework of ethical coercion have no a priori power to dissuade individuals from misconduct. Would the reader feel the same way if the story concerned a “curious” and incompetent stockbroker who seriously compromises his client’s money, but is then put in charge of the Federal Reserve as a reward for salvaging part of the situation? Having attempted something very like this pattern of behavior in my own household, I can say that the innocuous conclusion to George’s misadventures stretches the farthest limits of credibility.
II. Carnival Theory and the Good Little Monkey
There are, of course, alternative readings possible when exploring the ethical dilemma posed by Curious George and his many adventures. A relatively unexplored, but compelling approach concerns the theory that the structured transgression of social norms may either strengthen civic cohesion, or erode social bonds in order to lead to new – and possibly even better – forms of social organization. These interpretations draw heavily upon carnival theory as advanced by critical theorists such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Terry Eagleton and many others. Although it is beyond the scope of this discussion to explore these critical approaches fully, we’ll look at a few of the most relevant points as they apply to Curious George.
Returning again to the narrative template of the series, we see that George’s mischievous behavior generally results in a period of chaotic disorder that steadily escalates until the situation is resolved by the monkey’s resourcefulness and/or the intervention of a third party. A Bakhtinian-Eagletonian reading of this structure might argue that George’s descent into mischief is a ritualized response to the oppression of conventional authority structures as represented by the Man in the Yellow Hat. Almost invariably – though not wholly inexplicably – Yellow Hat temporarily disappears from the action, despite his certain knowledge of George’s propensity for mischief in his absence – only to return when the comedic mischief has run its course and normalcy begins to reassert itself.
From this perspective, the structured period of carnivalesque merriment and misrule operates as a kind of “safety valve” through which the pent-up energies, impulses and frustrations of the populace are safely dissipated, enabling conventional social authority to re-impose its control. Precedents may be found in such traditions as the Roman Saturnalia or the medieval Feast of Fools, both of which involve the licensed, temporary disruption of the social order through merriment, mischief and reckless behavior. Accordingly, it may be that George is left deliberately unattended so that he might experience a cathartic release of his own energies and rigidly-constrained desires. It is worth noting that, by the conclusion of many Curious George stories, we find our hero spent and relatively quiescent, safely back in the tight psycho-social grip of Yellow Hat – a “good little monkey” once more.
Pursuing Michel Foucault’s approach to the suspension of social norms, however, we can arrive at a somewhat different interpretation. Foucault notes that the liberation enjoyed during the loosening or deviation from social norms need not end in a reaffirmation of those norms, but rather can open the door to a reconfigured social order:
A culture, imperceptibly deviating from empirical orders prescribed for it by its primary codes frees itself sufficiently to discover that these orders are perhaps not the only possible ones or the best ones. (From The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Michel Foucault)
Foucault also points out that such periods of carnivalesque disorder can be simultaneously liberating and unsettling, an observation which sheds considerable light on the tone of George and his adventures. As previously noted, George’s mischief not only frees him from the dominance of Yellow Hat, but also frequently forces him to occupy a new (albeit short-lived) place in an alternative social order. An excellent example of this dynamic may be found in Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory. Here, George’s tampering with the factory’s machinery leads to a crisis in which the monkey must insert himself into the industrial production line in order to save the chocolates from spilling from the conveyor belt to the factory floor.
Even though George himself is the author of the near-calamity, he is praised for his skill and resourcefulness in boxing the chocolates faster than any human being. Following Foucault’s argument, George’s mischief obliges us to seriously 
consider an alternative social order in which monkeys hold a viable place in modern industry. It is, in fact, one of the factory workers who recognizes the potential George and his misbehavior represents: “Bring that monkey more boxes! He’s helping us catch up!” (p.20) Nevertheless, that open door is quickly shut again; George is whisked away from the factory by Yellow Hat, suffering from severe stomach pains as a result of eating too many chocolates. Even in Aquarium, his adoption as an “honorary staff member” at the conclusion of the story is no more than a token gesture, a pseudo-appointment with no real cachet in the professional world outside of George’s brief reign of misrule.
Ultimately, George is never permitted to pursue Foucault’s thinking to its logical conclusion. The pendulum swings from order to chaos, from repression to liberation and back again, evoking the tragedy of George and his plight. His place in the social system described by H.A. and Margaret Rey – and those who continued their work – is distressingly static. At best, his only real mobility is to become further ensconced in the culture of his human master. As at least one critic has noted, Curious George is to Yellow Hat as Shakespeare’s Caliban is to Prospero. (John J. Miller, WSJ 2 February, 2006). In such a case, can we hold Curious George to the same standards of ethical conduct and civic responsibility that we take for granted?
About the author:
Nathanael P. Medwick is Chair of Literary Philosophy at Children’s Choice Daycare in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is the author of numerous monographs including The Virtue of Disobedience and When the Poopie Hits the Fan: The Politics of Transgression in Modern Childcare Settings.
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