FACULTAD REGIONAL MULTIDISCIPLINARIA DE MATAGALPA UNAN – FAREM MATAGALPA

To utilize the children’s stories as design inspiration, I fi rst analyzed the book text and illustrations to determine the specifi c components that connected to human emotion regarding the environment. It is my assertion that a combination of both the specifi c imagery and the written descriptions used in children’s literature trigger youths’ concern for nature. The wondrous Truffula Tree forest and the place where the wild things live capture the imagination of the reader and inspire a tone of excitement. While the polluted Wump World and melancholy of the “Unless” rock left remaining in The Lorax provide the reader with a sense of sadness. Understanding the simplicity of the drawings and descriptions provided in these tales is valuable in determining the visual imagery that is interesting to children—especially considering that these spatial environments can be re-interpreted in outdoor places to create a bond between children and the natural world.

Several common themes can be found in these books. Two of these stories, The Wump World and The Lorax express mankind’s callous misuse of nature as an unlimited resource—with the suffering of all biotic species as a result. The irony of such maltreatment, as expressed in the stories, is that people rely upon nature for survival. Therefore, the moral of these stories is that people need to protect the natural resources available in order to ensure their survival. Nature is resilient to human environmental degradation, but only to an extent.

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In The Lorax and The Wump World, nature suffers from large scale degradation at the hands of insensitive, consumption-oriented human beings. And in both of these tales, the environment is so severely degraded that even the non-human species dependent upon the nature suffered. The Swomee—Swans, Brown bar-ba-loots, and the humming fi sh from The Lorax and the wumps from The Wump World, which had long lived in a symbiotic relationship with the natural world, were all forced to retreat from their natural habitats. These species were forced from their homes by humans (or humanoid creatures). The humanoids had over-exploited the natural environment to the extent that it no longer supported any living creatures. Even the human-like creatures of each tale were forced to leave as a result of their misuse of the environment.

Nature’s resilience is also referenced within The Lorax and The Wump World. The Onceler tells the boy at the end of The Lorax that he can make a difference if he cares enough about nature. Such words of wisdom invite young readers to make a difference—to become environmental stewards and fi ght for humans to make ecologically- considerate decisions. And Bill Peet, author of The Wump World, writes that nature is resilient—that it can rejuvenate itself from both degradation and pollution. However, he cautions that there will always be scars. There is no way to completely undo all of the changes that humans have made to the natural world—though these environmental harms can be lessened in their severity if people take action and encourage biological remediation.

Where the Wild Things Are demonstrates children’s love of wildness. Max, a rambunctious young boy, wreaks terror in his play within the family house. But when Max is later sent to his room because of his rough-housing, he imagines himself in nature—in a wild place—and he is free and happy. The story emphasizes that people rely upon nature for survival, but they also depend upon it for happiness and health.

The Lorax

The Lorax is a tale of natural tragedy. In this story, the Once-ler comes to the Truffula Tree forest and is inspired by their beauty and the wondrous environment that they create. “All my life I’d been searching for trees such as these. The touch of their tufts was much softer than silk and they had the sweet smell of fresh butterfl y milk. I felt a great leaping of joy in my heart” (Seuss, 1999, 16). Yet, he is not satisfi ed with merely observing the beauty of nature; the Once-ler feels that he must somehow own the trees or make them more useful. So he began chopping down these beautiful trees that provided habitat for the Swomee—Swans, Brown bar-ba-loots, and the humming fi sh in order to make worthless human goods called “thneeds.”

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Despite their apparent lack of worth, the Once-ler creates a business of making thneeds by chopping down the trees in the Truffula forest. This results in a lessening of habitat for the other species relying upon the trees for survival. And in spite of the warnings from the Lorax (a little creature that symbolizes the human conscience) for the Once- ler to cease his unethical treatment of the environment, the Once-ler maintains his destructive path of Truffula Tree harvesting. He does not see the environmental impact that his removal of the trees has on the Truffula forest or on the other animals dependent upon the forest. One by one each of the animal species is forced to leave the Truffula forest due to lack of food or pollution created by the thneed-making machines. The Once-ler feels saddened, but does not see that he has been the direct source of the devastation. Blinded by his greed for monetary profi t, the Once-ler destroyed all that was once beautiful and pristine—the Truffula Trees that he loved. The once fantastical Truffula Tree forest had been transformed into a disgusting, dark, dingy, smog- fi lled place. The haunting end to The Lorax consists of the Once-ler giving a young boy the very last Truffula Tree seed with the words, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot nothing is going to get better, it’s not” (Seuss, 1999, 58). The Lorax offers a Truffula Tree seed of hope at the tale’s end—allowing readers to believe that change is an option. People can modify their behaviors to establish a more symbiotic relationship with the natural environment.