“You can go
on skates.
"You can go
on skis.
You can go
in a hat.
But
please go.
Please!”
The book begins with an unnamed character who is visually represented by only a portion of the arm and hand sticking out from behind a wall telling Marvin K. Mooney that it is now time for him to go. What commences from that starting point is a tale which has much in common with the structure of Green Eggs and Ham. Marvin is told to go using a variety of rhyming ends words such as those listed in the quote above. Where it differs from the more well-known Seuss book is that Marvin does not reply with reiterations of the same words to the negative. He does not, for instance, say something like “I will not go on skates, I will not go on skis…”
“I don’t care how.”
The suggested means by which Marvin can go get increasingly more bizarre, intensifying in their ridiculousness. However, there is also a strong element of repetition to the story. Throughout, the person who is very desirous that Marvin should leave repeats a declarative request that the time has come for them to go while also confessing strongly that they really do not care how the exit is achieved. This is somewhat ironic considering how many different propositions this same character offers for the means departure.
The time had come.
SO…
Marvin WENT.
The intensifying quality of the request that Marvin depart reaches a climax when the illustration of the arm and hand of the unnamed speaker takes up an entire page, towering threateningly over poor little Marvin. On the opposite page is the repetition of the urgent directive to leave with the word “GO” repeated twice and bigger than they have been represented so far in the text. The very next page brings the story to a conclusion on the distinct note of understatement quoted above.
