Summary
Oh, the Places You’ll Go begins with the second-person narrator congratulating the book’s unnamed protagonist, a young boy referred to as “you.” The narrator acknowledges that the boy is now free and “off to Great Places,” and the illustration shows the boy confidently walking toward the right—toward the next page. The narrator praises the boy’s abilities and acknowledges that only he can determine his next destination: “You can steer yourself / any direction you choose.”
The boy begins to walk down some streets in a town, prepared for an adventure. He strolls past stern-looking green creatures popping out of holes in the streets, and the narrator praises the boy for avoiding “not-so-good streets.” The boy decides that he doesn’t want to explore the town any further, so he heads toward a strange, open patch of land occupied by purple elephants. As the boy’s journey progresses, the narrator encourages the boy to not feel intimidated by the new surroundings, reassuring him, “Don’t stew. / Just go right along. / You’ll start happening too.” The next few pages show scenes from the boy’s journey: carnivalesque, boldly striped structures enclosing the boy at all sides.
Then, the boy is in a hot-air balloon, flying across a series of hills. There are other people in balloons, too, but the boy outraces them all—until his balloon collides into a tree branch. The balloon now soberly hangs from the tree, and the boy’s expression has changed from one of awe and wonder to one of fear. The narrator summarizes the abrupt undoing of the boy’s triumphant lead over others: “Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best. / Wherever you go, you will top all the rest. / Except when you don’t. / Because, sometimes, you won’t.”
The other balloons surpass the boy, who is now on the ground, examining his surroundings. The scenery has changed: the bright, whimsical hills have been replaced by large, rocky boulders and a dark, menacing, and squiggly-drawn sky. The boy continues to move forward—this time, with a much more wide-eyed and fearful expression on his face. The narrator characterizes the boy’s new situation as a “Slump” and states that “Un-slumping yourself / is not easily done.” The boy soon finds himself in a disorienting new setting: a town with misshapen archways and unmarked streets that don’t clearly point to a new path.
For a moment, the new, unfamiliar environment paralyzes the boy, and he is unsure of where to take himself next. Soon, he begins to sprint down “long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace / and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space” toward the most ominous and “useless” place of all: The Waiting Place.
Analysis
The last published book in Dr. Seuss’s career, Oh, the Places You’ll Go! chronicles the journey of life: the boundless possibilities, the daunting challenges, and ever-evolving circumstances. While chronicling various stages of opportunity and upheaval, the book explores the relationship between individualism and community, celebrates autonomy, and presents the inevitability of failure—all with Seuss’s signature humor and whimsical illustrations.
Notably, Seuss does not give the protagonist—the young boy in yellow pajamas—a name or any specific, discernible attributes. The narrator simply refers to him as “you,” which alludes to the story's universality: the broad, nondescript nature of the boy’s journey allows us to sympathize with and see ourselves in his tumult. As such, the use of second-person narration directly addresses and involves readers in the story, which encourages us to project our own life experiences onto the boy’s journey in turn. The boy, in other words, is a mere stand-in for readers.
To further empower readers to recognize our own strength and harness our autonomy, the narrator repeatedly emphasizes the boy’s skills, abilities, and independence. With the phrase, “With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, / you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street,” the narrator uses a simple metaphor to illustrate how the boy has everything he needs to succeed in the next phase of his life: his brains, or his intelligence, and his feet, or his mobility. With our brains and our feet, we have the power to go wherever we want, create our paths, and pursue the opportunities that serve our best interests. To further emphasize the role of self-sufficiency and independence in creating a fruitful life, the narrator declares, “You’re on your own. And you know what you know. / And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” With the capitalized “YOU” the narrator shows his determination to grab our attention and urges us to take charge in our own lives—not let anyone else do that work for us.
Indeed, the boy’s transition from the city to the country-esque area further foregrounds the book’s theme of autonomy and self-determination. With the town’s “not-so-good streets,” the narrator acknowledges that the urban setting can stifle the boy’s ambitions and freedom. Even the imagery of the town paints a portrait of conformity and sameness: the buildings all point upwards and are roughly the same height and shade of gold, and the neatly maintained streets connote a clear, predictable, and predetermined path. Generally, the town appears safe and comfortable, but it does not afford or promote any risk-taking. When the boy ventures out of town, he finds himself in an area of “wide open air” without buildings enclosing in on him. The vast openness of the new space presents an area of infinite opportunity—the boy is now free to use his “head full of brains” and “shoes full of feet” to embark on his own path, take risks, and navigate life’s possibilities.
The book’s joyful, optimistic tone peaks when the boy flies in the balloon. These series of pages depict a fulfilling stage of life: the boy is effortlessly outracing others, which provokes a happy, carefree, and prideful expression on his face. The rhythm of the repetitious, rhyming couplet, “Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best / Wherever you go, you will top all the rest” matches and amplifies the exuberance and energy of the boy’s triumph. Seuss uses additional artistic flourishes to externalize the boy’s promising and positive trajectory, such as the cheerful, whimsical, and multicolored fields and hills surrounding him, and the purposeful positioning of the text (“You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights!”) at the top of the page.
However, the boy’s success suddenly crumbles when his balloon crashes into the tree on the following page. The rhythm of the previous couplets—beginning with the energetic, repetitive “Wherever you…” phrase—become disrupted with two dramatically shorter couplets: “Except when you don’t. / Because, sometimes, you won't.” There is also an abrupt shift in the book’s imagery: a lonely tree surrounded by a stark, lifeless, and murky blue landscape replaces the bright hills on the previous page. As the narrator proceeds to characterize the boy’s new life stage as a “Slump,” the positioning of the stanzas gradually make their way down to the bottom of the page, thus signifying the boy’s newfound fear and helplessness.
The sharp juxtaposition of the illustrations, poetic construction, and text positioning of the boy’s success and “Slump” highlights life's basic unpredictability. As Seuss demonstrates, happiness is not a constant state of being; rather it is a fleeting emotion that appears in brief bursts. The boy must cope with his "Slump" or sudden unraveling of his triumph, as life is full of unexpected disruptions, and failure is unpreventable—regardless of the extent of our accomplishments. The narrator nonchalantly discusses the conditions and patterns of Slumps, claiming, “Hang-ups can happen to you,” “You’ll come down from the Lurch / with an unpleasant bump / And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump,” and “Un-slumping yourself / is not easily done.”
Here, the narrator’s casual, colloquial term conveys and normalizes the inevitability of challenging, unproductive periods of our lives: they are bound to happen, and they are uncomfortable and difficult to confront and overcome. With this, the narrator establishes the central conflict of the story: can the boy move on from his Slump and rediscover his success? Or will he lose sight of his confidence and motivation and mindlessly wander the most aimless place of all—The Waiting Place?
