Trapped by Convention, Escape from Conformity
One of the themes of the book is the advantages of moving past conventions and traditions. The two kids at the center of the story are asking the titular question and things begin right smack dab in the middle of 1950’s conformist conservatism:
“I took one fast look…
I saw a fine dog who shook hands.
So we shook.
So I said,
`I want him!’"
Critical Thinking
Gradually the two kids move beyond the conventions of dogs and cats to consider possibilities. As they evolve, their critical thinking skills become sharpened and capable of, in the modern vernacular, thinking outside the box:
“Another kind maybe
is what we should get.
We might find a new kind.
A pet who is tall.
A tall pet who fits
in a space that is small.”
Imaginative Thinking
The next step after critical thinking is movement beyond the possibilities and potential of logic and into the world of imagination. The kids reach a point of exhausting the realistic possibilities of actual animals to treat as pets and begin to create their own menagerie of creatures existing only within the reality of the mind:
“If we had a big tent,
then we would be able
to take home a YENT!”
“Make Up Your Mind”
There is a constant pressure upon the boy and the girl to make up their mind about what animal they want to take home as a pet. It becomes a kind of mantra and is vividly portrayed in the illustrations as a quote with each individual word printed on a canvas attached in various ways to different animals. The directive to make up your mind refers, of course, directly to the idea of boiling down all the potential choices of animals into just one to agree upon as a pet. The evolution of the characters consideration of possible pets from the strictly conventional to the absurdly imaginative endows the phrase with imagery that helps to lend it an alternative meaning, however. That meaning applies to the fundamental controlling theme unifying all the works of Dr. Seuss into a cohesive unit: use your imagination whenever possible for whatever you can.
