Oh, The Places You'll Go Literary Elements

Children's literature.

A town, various whimsical and open spaces, and menacing places.

Second-person point of view mostly following the young protagonist.

Optimistic, upbeat, and exuberant; empathetic; authoritative.

Protagonist: "you," or the young unnamed boy. Antagonist: life's unpredictably and challenging circumstances.

The boy finds himself stuck in a variety of disruptive situations and must find a way to overcome them.

The boy encounters a series of frightening creatures, including the Hakken-Kraks, a large green monster, and strange birds.

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The illustrations in the book alternate between gloomy, dark images—representing the boy's adversity—and bright, cheerful images—representing the boy's triumph over his challenges.

The quote "Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best. / Wherever you go, you will top all the rest. / Except when you don't. / Because, sometimes, you won't.” is an example of a paradox. Here, the narrator states that "you" will be the "best of the best," but they immediately undercut and contradict this assertion. Through this, the narrator addresses a fundamental truth: sometimes, we may consider ourselves in the "lead"—only to flail or fall behind others.

The illustration on one of the book’s final pages is the same as the one on the first page—the boy moving to the right against a blank backdrop. After all of his experiences, the boy ends up exactly where he started: moving forward. The parallelism between these two images signifies the cyclicality of progress. No matter what goals we reach or adversities we face, we must never stop moving forward.

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