How The Lorax Helps To Develop A Child's Sanity And Morality
The importance of fantasy film and literature is that fantasy expands your mind and creativity. When you watch a film or read a book that is about a fantasy created by a director or producer, these films and books teach kids what is good or bad, what's right or wrong and also intangible values. The film The Lorax by Chris Renaud, teaches kids what is good and what is bad. In the lorax we see a kid named Ted trying to impress his neighbour audrey who has a passion for trees which have vanished, Ted then tries to get her a tree by going on a long journey to find a tree. Ted ventures out of the town of sneedville to then stop at a dark scary building owned by the Once-ler, the Once-ler is very intrigued to see that someone cares slightly for the trees again, The Once-ler then tells Ted the story of how the trees vanished and how it was his fault, by the end of the story the Once-ler decides to give the last truffula seed and tells Ted that he should plant it in the center of the town and show everyone that trees are a good thing, Ted plants the seed and the truffula tree starts to grow and beyond the town of sneedville where the Once-ler’s house is the trees that have been chopped down by him all come back and the Once-ler's house is not dirty and dark anymore it is very colourful and bright and the town of sneedville and the once-ler live happily ever after. Similarly to the film Scott Dunne’s article talks about fantasy books and films and talks about how a fantasy film or book help a child's sanity and morality. The film The Lorax helps kids develop sanity and morality through ascendancy, personal integration and hero vs villain.
The first way that the film helps to develop sanity and morality is through ascendancy. During the film The Lorax The Once-ler has ascendancy over the forest. The once-ler lets greed, money and fame take over him as he chops down all the trees in Thneedville, destroying the whole forest and leaving nothing forces the animals to leave and find a new home. This helps a kids Morality as it shows them what is good and what is bad and also shows them to not let greed,money and fame takeover them. Similarly Scott Dunne writes that “the child makes such identifications all on his or her own, and the inner and outer struggle of the hero inprint morality on him.”(Scott-Dunne pg #58). The next way we see ascendancy in the film is O’hare selling air to the town. O’hare sells air to the town of Sneedville and is the town's reliable source/mayor of the town and controls what everyone does in that town and hides them from the real world and puts them in a fake world with fake trees and fake beaches and ski resorts. So then no one can remember what the real world uses to be with trees that give oxygen for free, and that will take his business away from him if people knew that so he tries to stop people from finding the truth. This helps a child's morality as it shows them that they should not let money and greed take over them and control people who are not at the same level that you are and that you should always be yourself. The last way we see ascendancy in the film is from the lorax.
The Lorax has ascendancy over the animals in the forest as he is their protector of the forest and they trusted him to protect them and the forest and failed, so the animals were forced to find a new home. This helps a child's morality as they shouldn’t have all their trust into one person as they should be able to have some faith in their self. The Once-ler, O’hare and the Lorax show use that we should not let greed take over use and that we should also not put all our trust into someone as they can turn on you or let you down.
The second way the fim helps develop a child's sanity and morality is through personal integration. During the film we can see that the Once-ler has a good and a bad side. At the beginning of the story we see that the Once-ler is a man who is trying to get rich so he can impress his family, when his campaign of going into town and try and sell thneeds fails he then goes back to the forest and promises that he won’t destroy the forest and will help The Lorax, until a horde of people start marching and singing through the forest wanting a thneed and then the once-let changed his mind and let the greed and money takeover him as he destroys all the trees and leaves nothing left and is left with regret when the last tree is chopped down leaving the animals to find a new home. This helps a child’s morality because it shows them that not all people are completely bad some people still care for things even though it may not look like they do.Similarly Scott Dunn believes that “ the fairy tale is a poetic vision of man and his relationship to the world-a vision that for centuries inspired the fairy tale’s hearers with strength and confidence because they sensed the fundamental truth of this vision”. The next way we see personal integration in the film is from the forest. At the beginning of the film we see that the forest is a beautiful place we’re the animals sing a place, until the once-ler chops down all the trees and leaves nothing but a wasteland, until Ted is interested in the trees and wants to know how to get one and the Once-let gives Ted the last truffula seed and Ted plants the seed in the center of Sneedville where everyone can see it and believe in trees again so they can grow and the forest can be like how it used to be.This helps a child’s sanity because you can be perfectly fine and happy until one day you just snap and lose control over yourself just like the forest couldn’t control what was happening to them and then after some help along the way you can get healed from your problems and everything will be alright again. The last way we see personal integration is through the town of Sneedville. The town of Sneedville looks like a beautiful town on the inside but on the outside we see that the town is surrounded by walls and the towns people are being hidden from the truth about the outside of the town being a wasteland with little oxygen left in the world because there are no trees to be seen, to give them oxygen except O’hare takes that air and sells them to the town. This helps a child's morality as they can see that people can ack nice on the inside but on the outside they can be fake. In conclusion, the once-ler, the forest and the town of Sneedville can be good or nice at first but then the truth of that character or person will be found out and they will either become a villain but then eventually will find that they have messed up and will be filled with regret.
The last way the film helps kids develop sanity and morality is through hero vs villain. During the film we can see that O’hare is the villain of the film as we see that he take air from the world and makes people pay for it, O’hare is also is causing pollution with the factories used to make the air bottles. This will help people develop sensitivity because the actions of O’hare will show them that it is okay to do these things even tho it is not and don’t think they can be stopped, but every fairytale has a hero to stop the villain. The next villain is the once-ler. The Once-ler is at fault for destroying the tree and causing a wasteland and destroying the homes of the animals that have lived there. This helps a child's morality because it teaches them that they shouldn't let greed, or fame temp them into destroying a whole forest or home for the animals because they wanted to make a business. Similarly Scott Dunne believes that “As the child listens to fairly tales he creates order out of chaos of his inner life”. The hero of the film was the little boy named Ted. Ted went on a long journey to see the Once-ler and was given a Truffula seed and was told to plant the seed in the center of town so everyone can see it and then the tree will grow back. This helps a child's morality as it shows them that they can follow their dreams and they can do what they want without letting people get in the way of it.
In conclusion the film The Lorax helps kids develop sanity and morality through ascendancy, personal integration and the theme of hero vs villain.
