What Was I Scared Of?

“Well…I was walking in the night

And I saw nothing scary.

For I have never been afraid

Of anything. Not very.”

Seuss. (2018). WHAT WAS I SCARED OF?S.l.: HARPERCOLLINS.

Genre: Fiction/Children’s Literature

Dr. Seuss creates a curious and fearful adventure in this story as a frightened creature runs from mysterious glowing pants. The coloring in this book is mostly monochromatic, with the only colored objects being the main character and the pants. This helps them stand out against the rest of the illustrations and helps the reader follow along in their journey as the fear increases with each page. There is also the classic Seuss rhyming pattern present in this book that makes the tale more poetic, in nature.

In the beginning, the main character sees the floating pants in the woods, but denies his fear. He tries to convince himself that there’s nothing to fear even as he runs away. The first time he admits to being afraid of the pants is a week later when he spots them riding past him on a bicycle. He ran away again, abandoning his groceries, when the pants follow him. He escapes, though, and hides for several nights in a bush until he emerges to run an important errand. But, it is during this time when the pants appear again and the two finally confront each other. The pants reveal that the main character wasn’t the only one afraid, though, when they start to tremble and cry.

The main character realizes that they were both strange beings to each other, which elicited the initial fear. He understands the pants’ feelings and pities them, deciding that instead of running he would befriend the pants. Every day after that, they pass each other and share friendly greetings.

The point of showing the character’s fear as a pair of floating pants could represent how people fear what is different, but the character eventually learns when they are standing face-to-face that the pants fear him just as much, if not more. The theme of this story seems to be that fear can be overcome if it is first understood. Or that fear of people and foreign understandings is misplaced.