Crocodile's Toothache
Crocodile's Toothache - fact Summary
From Where the Sidewalk Ends
Published in Shel Silverstein’s 1974 collection Where the Sidewalk Ends, this short comic narrative follows a crocodile who visits a dentist for a toothache. The dentist climbs into the wide jaws, clumsily extracts teeth and is ultimately snapped away. The poem uses dark humor and playful rhyme to invert roles and conclude with a sly shrug about the missing dentist, leaving a grin of absurdity rather than resolution.
Read Complete AnalysesOh the Crocodile Went to the dentist And sat down in the chair, And the dentist said, 'Now tell me, sir, Why does it hurt and where?' And the Crocodile said, 'I'll tell you the truth. I have a terrible ache in my tooth.' And he opened his jaws so wide, so wide, That the dentist he climbed right inside, And the dentist laughed, 'Oh, isn't this fun?' As he pulled the teeth out, one by one. And the Crocodile cried, 'You're hurting me so! Please put down your pliers and let me go.' But the dentist just laughed with a Ho Ho Ho, And he said, 'I still have twelve to go -- Oops, that's the wrong one, I confess. But what's one crocodile's tooth, more or less?' Then suddenly the jaws went snap, And the dentist was gone right off the map. And where he went one could only guess... To North or South or East or West... He left no forwarding address. But what's one dentist more or less?
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