'The Lorax’ is fable written by Dr. Seuss in 1971. Although this story uses words like 'Swommee–Swans' and 'Bar-ba-loot fruits', many themes and issues discussed in this fable are very serious and slightly frightening matters. It tackles many serious problems, including deforestation, near-sighted humans, extinction of species and global warming. In this story, ‘The Once-ler’ – the antagonist - is a greedy, lonely, selfish businessman, and although a ‘Once-ler’ is a made up creature, he relates very closely to the selfish and short sighted human beings.
The ‘Once-ler’ takes everything he wants and ignores everything he believes is unimportant, such as the Lorax’s (pictured) important message of hope. The Lorax pledges for the Once-ler to slow down his business of knitting ‘Thneeds’ to save the environment. The Once-ler ignores the Lorax’s words of wisdom, and just keeps on expanding his business. By the end of the story the ‘Once-ler’ has run out of resources, and is left old and remorseful for the short-term rush of power. Dr. Seuss was most likely trying to emphasise the way humans find it hard to see the long term consequences of their actions.
The most depressing part of this story is that almost 40 years ago Dr. Seuss knew that there was horror to come if humans continued their ways. But in general, humans have not made a difference. And now we are facing the terrifying consequences.
Words: 233
Good stuff Jemima. A little too much recounting of the story but the opinions and reflections that were embedded in the post were quite good.
ReplyDelete