Analysis Of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax

Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax offers an animated analogy of how man’s actions have recursive actions towards the ecological balance of nature. The film largely emphasises on the artificiality of nature within Thneedville. While its citizens seem unfazed by the lack of natural resources, it is apparent that Dr. Seuss is portraying their oblivion towards the scarcity of nature itself. However, though the lack of natural resources may result in a polluted or contaminated environment, the clean outlook of Thneedville creates suspicion amongst its audience with regards to the city’s sustainable responsibility. Thus, the film establishes an anthropocentric scope that triggers public consciousness towards environmental and wildlife conservation. The stage …show more content…
The richness of the Trufulla trees offers a myriad of economic and business ventures that appeals to Once-Ler’s interest. In seeing the Trufulla trees’ potential value in being a natural resource for his brand’s products, it becomes a victim to industrialisation and consumerism. In being “entirely spent by humanity” (Sloane, 420), nature embodied by the Trufulla trees then loses its value as it withers, dies, and falls into near extinction. The obsession with “seizing nature [and leaving it] in abandonment actualizes human and nature to the point of reciprocal crisis” (Sloane, 422). As the Trufulla trees population falls at an alarming rate, it carries a snowball effect towards the loss of diversity and environmental contamination (Sloane, 423). The film depicts the animals’ mass migration towards a certain other destination that is away from industrial activities. As they travel, the aura of despondence and illness is clear. Their crestfallen and sickly facial expressions show not only their sorrow from having to leave their natural habitat, but the emotional and physical struggled that they have endured as their food source, the Trufulla trees, has been taken away from them. This emotional trauma breaks down barriers for the film audience to realise that these ecological crises have a substantially large “biological consequences” (Sloane, 423) towards nature. The film depicts these by animating smokes and fogs in the sky, followed by green slimes slithering on the surface of the rivers. These images, therefore heighten the realisation of the effect that industrialisation and consumerism have towards the ecological crisis. By targeting the audiences’ emotions through anxiety and guilt, it encourages the individual to identify with nature’s plea to be saved. It is only through nature conservation and protection that the survival of the