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In an “innocent” popular children's book enjoyed by my little boy now and by myself as a child, we have a portrayal of the trouble with our modern, mechanized society.
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton, was first published in 1939 and was reissued in 1967 by Houghton Mifflin. The story is positively charming, and the simple, realistic drawings (done in a style that Grandma Moses might have done quickly with crayons) make it even more easy and pleasant to recall. The back cover includes recommendations by The New Yorker, the American Library Association, and seven other agencies which certify good books for children.
“Mike Mulligan had a steam shovel, a beautiful red steam shovel,” says the first page. “Her name was Mary Anne.” He took such good care of her that “she never grew old.” Here is the symbol of mother and boy, madonna and child, in quiet, eternal, even sensual, bliss. “Proud” of her, “He always said that she could dig as much in a day as a hundred men could dig in a week, but he had never been quite sure that this was true.” Here anxiety over the child's relation to madonna is introduced, in a sentence that will be repeated verbatim two more times. The boy and mother have been able to combine against “the men” and their tools, but how long and how well will the dyad last? Will they continue to be winning performers? Indeed, the two had a fine record of digging together: canals “for big boats to sail through” they dug; they “cut through the high mountains so that trains could go through”; they “lowered the hills and straightened the curves to make long highways for the automobiles”; they “smoothed out the ground and filled in the holes to make the landing fields for the airplanes”; and they “dug the deep holes for the cellars of the tall skyscrapers in the big cities.” Here we have, in the terms of geography and engineering, their intercourse described and celebrated. In fact, they are so proud of it that they