Symbolism In The Lorax

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The Lorax is the story of a boy who's looking for answers. Living in a ruined town, with the intentions of impressing his current infatuation, the young lad seeks the help of the Once-Ler. The Once-Ler begins his narrations of finding the Truffula forest, which the marshmallow consuming, tent hogging bears, birds and fishes inhabited. He decides to cut down one of the trees for his invention, the Thneed. He believed his invention was an essential product to consumers for the rare leaves of the trees known as tuft, were soft as clouds, durable as titanium, and absorbent as sponges. The thneed provided many possible uses: a scarf, a sweater, or even a parachute. The thneed became the only product, everybody “needed.” However, by cutting down …show more content…

Due to his promise to not chop down any more Truffula trees, the process of harvesting tuft became tedious. And under the pressure of his mother, the Once-Ler allowed his family to cut down the trees to make production faster, resulting in the invention of the Super-Axe-Hacker. The axe-slinging machine that could take out four Truffula trees with one whack brought a dramatic change to the environment. The carbon levels in the area increased rapidly, for less organic carbon were being produced due to the reduction of trees. The Once-Ler’s industry also contributed to the increase of carbon dioxide being emitted in the atmosphere. The carbon cycle became imbalanced since consumers continued to breathe in oxygen and create CO2 through the metabolic processes of respiration. The greenhouse gas could not be countered efficiently enough by photosynthesis—the conversion of inorganic carbon back to organic carbon—due to the lack of Truffula …show more content…

All of the animals left and the Lorax picked himself up and rose away, leaving a rock with the word "unless" engraved on it. Throughout the years since the Lorax left, the Once-Ler only came to realize that, “unless someone cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” If nobody cared about the well-being of our planet, what change will there be? It’s been countlessly proven that one person can make a difference, but if none choose to care about the complications of this world, nothing will ever be resolved. It starts with us. We need to consciously change our lifestyle to help better the planet. We could begin by recycling, investing our money on energy efficient appliances and technologies, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and if you could, buying a hybrid vehicle to lessen carbon emission in the

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