The Truth About Rudolph
One generation from now, no living person will be able to remember a time when Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, was not a part of Christmas. Yet Rudolph, at the time of this writing, is just under eighty years old—too old to be just a fad, and too young to claim folklore status. What place should The Red-Nosed Reindeer by Robert L. May, or, as we know it today, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, claim within the literary canon? May’s poem takes its form, meter, and most of its characters from a tradition that already exists. The story’s origins, though, show it to be a thoroughly modern American production, and by no means destined for greatness in the literary tradition. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Rudolph) can be read as a formulaic underdog tale inspired by cultural mythemes, or as a marketing scheme embedded in a period of economic and social depression. Literature geeks like me often take sides in a longstanding methodological argument: Is the story to be understood by the structure of the text? Or, does the author’s own life and intent make it what it is? In the case of Rudolph, to account for the whole of its literary value and meaning, we’re going to have to draw from both methodologies.
The original text reads as something quite familiar. Rudolph comprises a series of rhyming couplets, a structure bearing more than a little resemblance to Clement Clarke Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, which had first appeared in print over a hundred years before Rudolph, had solidified earlier legends of St. Nicholas, and was already the most popular Christmas book in America. Moore’s and May’s texts share both lore and language. The first and last couplets of each text are as follows:
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night (Moore 1-2, 55-56)
Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the hills
The reindeer were playing . . . enjoying the spills
You may hear them call, as they drive out of sight,
“MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!” (May 1-2, 182-183)
Dispelling any question that this resemblance might be unintended, May’s Santa calls the reindeer by name, just as he does in Moore’s poem:
Come Dasher! Come Dancer! Come Prancer and Vixen!
Come Comet! Come Cupid! Come Donner and Blitzen! (May 43-44)
The imitation of Moore’s style is fitting, since Rudolph, rather than presenting a new fictional world, extends the myth of its predecessor. Rudolph himself is original, but May places him in the context of the worldwide Santa Claus mythos that can be traced back as far as the fourth century.
Features in Rudolph reaffirm themes common to myths and fairy tales handed down for generations. Whereas the reindeer in Moore’s poem are simply animals that can fly, May’s anthropomorphized deer read, write, and live in houses, much like the animal tales of folklore. Lord Raglan, in The Hero, asserts that mythic forms recur across all heroic narratives, and that from them we can distinguish between figures historical and mythical/traditional—“that which has really been handed down by word of mouth from time immemorial” (Raglan 45). Such patterns “suggest the existence of some fundamental grammar of narrative over a wide range of humanity,” according to Robert Scholes (Scholes 66). Vladimir Propp, in his study of Russian folktales, suggests this universality as well, when he says that “[f]unctions of characters serve as stable, constant elements in a tale, independent of how and by whom they are fulfilled. They constitute the fundamental components of a tale” (Propp 21). In the Rudolph tale, Rudolph is spirited away on an adventure, returning victorious and reigning uneventfully for the foreseeable future, thus meeting three of Raglan’s structural patterns. Of Propp’s 31 functions (because, for Propp, the function of action is more important than the pattern per se), Rudolph meets five: He leaves home, is tested by weather, uses a magical agent (be it his nose or the magic of Santa), finds objects sought, and returns. Among what Propp calls “spheres of action,” Rudolph features three: Santa as donor and dispatcher, and Rudolph as hero.
If we consider the 1964 Rankin/Bass television production of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which adds to the form a villain—the Bumble, a love interest—Clarice, a contentious and powerful father—Donner, and helpers—Hermey the Elf and Yukon Cornelius, Rudolph rises to meet six of Propp’s seven spheres of action. Likewise, the more complex plot aligns Rudolph with even more of Raglan’s patterns and Propp’s functions, which should bestow on it a share of the universal and “fundamental grammar of narrative” that Scholes describes. But structure alone is of little use without meaning. We must know to what end these elements of the hero myth are featured. For that, we must examine the themes highlighted in Rudolph.
Several themes emerge from the Rudolph mythos. Service is contribution to the welfare of others, and in Rudolph, the hero serves at the request of Santa Claus, for the benefit of all the children of the world. Santa’s fundamental purpose is to serve, and most important, to serve in secrecy. Perils of the journey notwithstanding, Santa’s greatest fear is of the children awakening:
Just think how the boys’ and girls’ faith would be shaken,
If we didn’t reach ‘em before they awaken!
Because it might wake them, a match was denied him.
He really was worried, for what would he do
If folks started waking before he was through?
The horrible fear that some children might waken (May 41-42, 59, 63-64, 99)
The consequence of children waking before Santa’s task is finished is a loss of faith. In other words, Santa and Rudolph are in service to faith.
Rudolph displays valor in accepting Santa’s request, for the task is a perilous one. Santa has risked becoming lost, has become tangled in trees, and has narrowly missed colliding with an airplane. He has suffered a skinned knee and a fall that lands him on his back. That Rudolph displays “such a big grin” (May 109) shows he feels elation, rather than trepidation, toward the challenge. Twice the word proud is applied to Rudolph--when he takes “his proud place at the head of the sleigh” (May 116), before embarking on his task, for “no greater honor can come to a deer” (May 146), and as he alights, upon the journey’s end.
Though proud to have served, Rudolph accepts Santa’s praise with humility. And it is heavy praise, indeed:
When Santa said:--“Rudolph, I never have had
A deer quite so brave or so brilliant as you
At fighting back fog, and at guiding me through.
By YOU last night’s journey was actually bossed.
Without you, I’m certain, we’d all have been lost.
I hope you’ll continue to keep us from grief
On future dark trips as COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF!” (May 156-162)
Santa, the most famous and powerful icon of Christmas, relinquishes entirely his power to Rudolph, whose response is simply a bashful blush. When asked for a speech, again Rudolph is “bashful” and “brief” with “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night” (May 170). Perhaps Rudolph doesn’t realize that the words of his bashful and brief speech are taken directly from Santa at the end of Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas. Or, perhaps, in relinquishing the power, Santa also relinquishes the words. Put another way, Rudolph’s use of Santa’s famous words, whether deliberate or unconscious, demonstrates a usurpation of power. Add one more feature from the Propp and Raglan lists: Rudolph displaces the king.
The most often repeated theme in Rudolph, though, is that of goodness. Whereas the Rankin/Bass production places Rudolph in the North Pole community of deer, May’s original poem likens Rudolph to the hopeful children who await Santa’s visit on Christmas Eve:
Although he was lonesome he always was good . . .
Obeying his parents, as good reindeer should
That’s why, on this day Rudolph almost felt playful:-
He hoped that from Santa (soon driving his sleighful
Of presents and candy dollies and toys
For good little animals, good girls and boys)
He’d get just as much . . . and this is what pleased him
As the happier, handsomer reindeer who teased him
As night, and a fog hid the world like a hood,
He went to bed hopeful; he knew he’d been good!
Old Santa knew always which children were good
And minded their parents and ate as they should (May 19-30, 129-130)
Thus May’s text reinforces the theme of goodness in the existing Santa Claus mythos. Part of Rudolph’s goodness is the fortitude he displays amidst the hurtful teasing of his peers and the politeness he affords his parents by leaving them a note before rushing off to help Santa. Santa himself shows tact and politeness in his exchange with Rudolph, referring to Rudolph’s “wonderful forehead” because “[t]o call it a ‘big, shiny nose’ would sound horrid!” (May 105-106). While we have come to know a surlier Santa through the Rudolph television production, Rudolph’s goodness remains pure even as the myth exists today.
In the mythic tradition, and as an extension of the Santa Clause mythos, Rudolph features the qualities of service, valor, humility, and goodness. These features are widely paralleled in other myths and fairy tales of our culture: Belle steps up to serve when she offers herself in place of her father in “Beauty and the Beast.” Arthur’s valor is renowned in the Arthurian legends. Snow White is humble. Cinderella, despite banishment to the ashes, is good. Joseph Campbell, in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, says that in the study of myths and folk tales,
The parallels will be immediately apparent; and these will develop a vast and amazingly constant statement
of the basic truths by which man has lived throughout the millenniums of his residence on the planet (Campbell viii).
Structure, then, can reveal truth. Yet, there is another way to examine Rudolph, beyond the structure of May’s text.
Situating Rudolph in its social, economic, and historical context reveals even more meaning than we can extract from the text alone. Robert L. May was a copywriter for Montgomery Ward, Chicago, in 1939 when he was instructed by his employer to write a children’s book to promote Christmas sales. Ward’s had previously used coloring books and other giveaways for adult-accompanied children to attract customers for holiday shopping. Printing their own book would be cheaper than purchasing the novelty items from vendors, and even cheaper if all 620 Montgomery Ward stores placed a single, high-volume printing order. In the December, 1939 issue of Business Builder, a Ward’s in-house magazine,
Rudolph was featured on the cover, perhaps one of the first images of the red-nosed reindeer leading Santa’s team. Santa and the reindeer team are flying over a Montgomery Ward store, and four of the reindeer are labeled: Rudolph, Newspaper Ads, Circulars, and Displays. Interestingly, Santa is carrying huge bags of money, the results—no doubt—of a properly executed marketing campaign (Lankford 26-27).
Montgomery Ward comprised stores in all 48 states, and, through a concerted nationwide marketing effort, distributed just under 2.4 million copies of Rudolph, “dwarfing the printing of any children’s book by a publisher at the time” (Lankford 23). It was a much-needed push for Montgomery Ward stores in the economy of the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had moved the Thanksgiving holiday up by one week to make the Christmas season longer in an attempt to help the economy. At the time, Army and Navy goods stores outnumbered department stores and the number of men’s apparel stores doubled that of women’s (Perry). “Five and dime” stores sold cheaper merchandise in the five- to ten-cent price range, so Montgomery Ward was tasked with enticing potential customers to come into the store and examine what Ward’s touted as the superior durability of their goods. With their aggressive advertising and distribution of Rudolph, you might say, as Ronald D. Lankford, Jr. does, in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: An American Hero, that, rather than responding to consumer demand, Ward’s created it (Lankford 140, italics added).
Socially, the American lifestyle for most had changed from one of opportunity to one of survival. Need, rather than want, drove expenditures. The most popular films of 1939 were Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, grand, lengthy, Technicolor spectacles that allowed temporary respite from real-life turmoil. At the same time, hard work and fortitude were still ingredients of the American Dream, a spirit that would serve Americans well in the looming World War. To walk into a large retail store like Montgomery Ward, and be gifted with what was quickly becoming a beloved children’s book, must have seemed like a Christmas blessing. Like the best movies, Rudolph was produced in color amidst a world of mostly black and white images.
Robert May lived entrenched in this economic and social turmoil, and produced Rudolph from and within his own experience. But why? Rudolph was created as a work-for-hire at the request of May’s employer. That’s one answer. Another is that he saw himself as a loser, an underdog who triumphs in the end, a sort of Ugly Duckling, as in the Hans Christian Andersen tale. In a press release entitled “Rudolph and I Were Something Alike,” May writes:
Here I was, heavily in debt at age 35, still grinding out catalogue copy. Instead of writing the great American
novel, as I’d once hoped, I was describing men’s white shirt[s]. It seemed I’d always been a loser (Benlocker.com).
May’s family has described him in youth as small, unathletic, and mercilessly teased by his peers (Lankford 1). Perhaps his physical smallness came from the fact that he skipped a grade or two, attending Dartmouth College early, in 1922, and graduating Phi Beta Kappa. But, whether due to the economic downturn, or his ailing wife’s medical bills, May had not risen above the position of copywriter at the time he was asked to pen Rudolph. His four-year-old daughter happily served as a sounding board for May’s story ideas. According to May, she “loved the deer down at the zoo” (Benlocker.com). When May’s wife succumbed to cancer during the production of Rudolph, he “needed Rudolph now more than ever” and “buried [him]self in the writing” (Benlocker.com).
An author’s true intentions can only be guessed at. Perhaps May intended to wow his superiors at Ward’s, explore his own insecurities, write an American classic, simply pay the bills, or entertain and console his young daughter. Maybe, like me, he was a gifted, but lazy writer, roused only by the deadline. Nothing in Rudolph’s historical context allows us to know. Returning to the text itself fares no better in this regard. If, as Lankford concludes, “May’s literary choices [in Rudolph] define the target audience: young children” (Lankford 20), we cannot separate the text itself from the marketing plan. May could not step outside his circumstances in order to write Rudolph, just as he is a product of the children’s literature tradition at the same time he creates a work for children. And it’s not just the author who exists as both the source and product of the tradition—at some point those lines blurred for Rudolph, the myth, as well.
While, in a literary sense, Rudolph is hitched to Santa’s furry coat tails, the Santa Claus mythos also absorbs that of Rudolph, until they are parts of one cohesive myth. I have already shown how Rudolph scores on the Structuralism lists with Santa playing the role of dispatcher and donor. Santa Claus, himself a high-scoring hero on those lists within his own story, takes on Rudolph as one of his magical helpers on the hero’s journey. It’s a natural fit, though not the connecting vein from historical fact to mytheme that folklorists might prefer. Given his origins, Rudolph could function similarly to Ronald McDonald, the Afflack duck, or the Gyco Gecco—business mascots all. Except he doesn’t; and no one thinks of Montgomery Ward when they think of Rudolph, outside an essay like this one. Rudolph is a commercial, rather than organic, addition to the Santa story, much like the Coca-Cola image of Santa. Unlike the Coca-Cola Santa, however, Rudolph is not just an image, but a character in the story. And Rudolph is a company mascot whose ties to his company have dissolved. He seems to have found just the right niche.
Relegating Rudolph to the product of a marketing scheme does not explain its longevity, and mistakenly assumes that anything marketed in such a manner would be popular. If that were true, and given its enormous marketing power, Disney would surely be synonymous with Christmas by now. Neither does the structure of the Rudolph text alone account for its longevity, and inaccurately ascribes to it the purely organic nature of folklore without regard for its origin in commerce and in the pathos of one striving man. Seeking the truth about Rudolph must encompass both methodologies. The truth about Rudolph is that, although it can be circumscribed by Vladimir Propp’s “functions” and “spheres of action,” and Lord Raglan’s mythic patterns, it also confounds them. The historical and mythical have merged. The Rudolph lore and language have been baked into the batter of the Santa Claus mythos, and not baked in like easily-identifiable chocolate chips—but baked in like baking powder, a catalyst giving rise to the whole and inseparable from what is consumed. The truth about Rudolph is that initial demand for it was stirred by marketing—itself a rhetorical function of language—and that it does speak to certain values and truths that live in the language of literature. The truth about Rudolph, as ironic as it may be, is that, in the world of mythic literary tradition, Rudolph fits in.