Existing comment:
Charles M. Schulz
Peanuts * December 23, 1988
Reproduction
Schulz often commented in the strip about adult expectations -- assigned books to read during summer vacations, class projects to do over winter holidays, and, of course, school plays and concert recitals -- that took some of the enjoyment and spontaneity out of childhood.
In the final panel of the second strip, Marcie cattily asks Peppermint Patty if she is "slouching toward Bethlehem," an excerpt that Schulz almost certainly took from the 1920 poem "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats. Schulz also quoted from this poem in the April 6, 1993 Peanuts strip when Schroeder, the catcher, tells pitcher Charlie Brown in the middle of a baseball game, "things gall apart, the center cannot hold." Schulz was a voracious reader who often included literary references in the comic strip. |