Lonely Kids
Lots of strange creatures in that house. As far humans go, however, it’s just the kid. No sign of either parents. No gramps or nana. Not even a spinster aunt or drunk uncle as far as the eye can see. The kid apparently either has few friends or they are not allowed to come over to his house. Every single room features some fantastical imaginary friend or foe, however. The fact that there are foes at all among all those friendly creatures is highly suggestive, thematically. It seems fairly obvious this is a latchkey kid who not only doesn’t have many friends, but isn’t even around other kids long enough to make enemies. He has to make up a less than friendly imaginary companion. Most telling of all, however, is the next to last page when he admits to the reality of “many other friends that I have found.”
The Power of Imagination
The most fundamental recurring theme in the works of Dr. Seuss is celebrating the power of imagination. At its heart, this is one of the saddest works in the Seuss canon. The Zower in the shower and the Zable on the table are expressions of a lonely little boy left in a big empty house. Not only is this sad, but also horrifying in a sense. These imaginary creatures fill up the empty spaces inside his otherwise deserted home not just out of loneliness, but out of fear. This is made manifest through the mass population of creatures calling the menacingly purplish cellar home. The Tellar, Nellar, Bellar and testaments to the kid’s brightness to recognize such a place need not be as isolated as he is. He has single-handedly transformed the human void of his house into his own personal amusement park through nothing more than the power of imagination.
