Horton
Horton is physically the most enormous and powerful animal in the jungle. And yet, despite his strength, he is portrayed as the gentle protectorate of the smallest beings in the jungle: the Who civilization existing unseen within a speck of dust he places upon a clover. Within the allegorical framework of post-World War II restructuring, Horton symbolizes the United States rise to the status of superpower the greatest strength of which is using that power not to invade and occupy, but to offer protection.
The Whos
Allegorically speaking, the Whos are specifically intended to symbolize the Japanese in the aftermath of World War II. Smaller in physical stature, demeaned as less than human by wartime propaganda and reduce to the status of impotence by the loss of their power following their surrender, the persons who are still persons no matter how small represented the Whos are allegorical symbols of Japan first and foremost.
The Eagle
An eagle flies off with the clover containing the dust speck which is home to the Whos with the intention of stopping of Horton’s nonsense about their existence. It is a black-bottomed eagle with the distinctive name Vlad Vlad-i-koff, both of which taken together leaves no doubt that the eagle is intended to symbolize Japan’s historic enemy, Russia, and the potential threat of the Soviet Union to expand their sphere of domination to now much-weakened island nation.
The Wickersham Brothers
The Wickersham Brothers are a trio of monkeys who terrorize Horton and threaten the very existed of the Whos. They deny to Horton that the Whos even exist and are instrumental in getting the eagle to carry it away. This serves to implicate the monkeys—almost never a symbol of sober progressive thought—as wartime-era propagandists demonizing and dehumanizing the Japanese. They are out of step with the new world order of the post-war era and behave like un-evolved primates.
Jo-Jo
Jo-Jo is seen bouncing a yo-yo when every other Who has been responded to the call make as much noise as possible to convince the jungle animals of their existence. Jo-Jo is described as a “a very small shirker” and it is the addition of his single voice joining the cacophony produced by all the other Whos working together that makes the difference and allows them to be heard. Jo-Jo become symbolic of how every single person’s voice counts in the new world order of a democratic post-war society. (But only if the Whos do not have anything like an Electoral College capable of stifling millions of voices in the blink of an eye.)
