Front cover of an edition of The Lorax.
The Lorax (ISBN 0394823370) is a children's fantasy picture book of sixty-four pages written and illustrated by the American artist and author Theodore Seuss Geisel, who wrote under the pseudonym of Dr. Seuss. It was first published in 1971. The story, written in verse, seeks to deliver an environmental message to children. The plot is set in motion when a business magnate known as the Once-Ler arrives in a beautiful place that is home to several unique animals and where colorful Truffula Trees grow. The Once-Ler immediately starts a business that requires him to cut down Truffula Trees. As soon as he cuts down the first one, the book's title character the Lorax appears. The Lorax is a small anthropomorphic creature who claims to speak for the trees. Dismissing the warnings from the Lorax, the Once-Ler develops a thriving business, which has a devastating impact on the area and its wildlife. Once all of the area's natural resources are exhausted, the Once-Ler's business closes and he is left alone in the place that he destroyed.
There have been two screen adaptations of The Lorax, a 1972 American animated TV special and a 2012 American 3D CGI animated film. The book was also adapted as a stage musical that was first performed in the United Kingdom in 2015.
Plot[]
The book opens in a desolate place called the Street of the Lifted Lorax, bereft of plants apart from the grey colored Grickle Grass, where the wind smells sour and where "no birds ever sing excepting old crows". Why the area is called the Street of the Lifted Lorax and why it is so desolate has become something of a mystery. Everything can, however, be explained for a small fee by the Once-Ler, a character unseen apart from his long green arms and yellow eyes, who lives at the top of a crumbling building on the Street of the Lifted Lorax from which he never emerges. An unnamed boy pays the Once-Ler his fee of fifteen cents[1], a nail and the shell of a great-great-great grandfather snail into a pail on a string. The Once-Ler then tells his story by Whisper-ma-Phone.
The Once-Ler's story begins with his arrival in the area, which at that time has green grass and fresh breezes and is home to Swomee-Swans, Humming Fish and animals called Brown Bar-ba-loots and where the colorful Truffula Trees grow. The Once-Ler cuts down a Truffula Tree and uses its tuft to knit a Thneed, an article that he describes as a combination shirt, sock, glove, hat, carpet, pillow, sheet, curtain and bicycle seat cover. From the stump of the tree that the Once-Ler chopped down, a creature called the Lorax emerges. The Once-Ler describes the Lorax as looking something like a short old man who is "brownish" and "mossy" and speaks in a sharp bossy voice. The Lorax says that he speaks for the trees that are unable to speak. He expresses disdain for the Thneed that the Once-Ler has cut down a Truffula Tree to make and expresses incredulity that anyone would want to buy it. To the Lorax's surprise, someone immediately buys the Thneed. The Once-Ler then contacts his brothers, uncles and aunts and invites them to join him and get rich.
The other members of the Once-Ler Family arrive. They build a factory and chop down many more Truffula Trees to make Thneeds. After a week, the Lorax comes to the Once-Ler again and tells him that the removal of many Truffula Trees has left the Brown Bar-ba-loots without any shelter and without any fruit to eat. The Lorax says he can no longer protect the Brown Bar-ba-loots and wishes them luck as they all leave the area. The Once-Ler feels sad as he watches them go, but concludes that, "business is business," and his business needs to expand.
The Lorax comes back to the Once-Ler and tells him that the smoke emitted by his expanded factory is making it impossible for the Swomee-Swans to sing. Since the Lorax is unable to protect them any longer, the Swomme-Swans all fly away from the area. The Lorax adds that waste from his factory that the Once-Ler is dumping into the pond makes it impossible for the Humming Fish to hum any longer. The Humming Fish leave, walking on their fins, in search of "some water that isn't so smeary."[2]
The Once-Ler angrily tells the Lorax that he is fed up of being lectured by him, has no intention of changing his ways and plans to continue cutting down Truffula Trees to make into Thneeds. At that moment, the last Truffula Tree is cut down. Since it is impossible to make any more Thneeds without any more Truffula Trees, there is no longer any work for the other members of the Once-Ler's family to do there, so they all go, leaving the Lorax and the Once-Ler alone in his big empty factory. The Lorax then lifts himself up by the seat of his pants and disappears through a hole in the smog in the sky. Where the Lorax last stood, there is a pile of rocks with the word "UNLESS" written on it.
The Once-Ler concludes the story he is telling the boy by saying that he spent many years wondering what the meaning of the word "UNLESS" was. He tells the boy that he has come to the conclusion that it means,
- "UNLESS someone like you
- cares a whole awful lot,
- nothing is going to get better.
- It's not."
The Once-Ler then tosses down the one remaining Truffula Seed to the unnamed boy. He tells him to plant the seed, nurture and protect the tree and start a new forest. The Lorax and all of his animal friends may then return.
Footnotes[]
- ↑ This was changed to fifteen pence for the British edition of the book.
- ↑ The follow up line "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie was removed from American editions of The Lorax some fourteen years after it was first published when research associates from the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Dr. Seuss about the clean-up of Lake Erie. The line, however, continues to appear in British editions of the book and can be heard in the British audiobook edition of The Lorax.