The Phantom Tollbooth

Summary

The Phantom Tollbooth is a comic fantasy about Milo, a boy so bored that nothing seems worth doing, learning, or even noticing. One afternoon he finds a large package in his room containing a toy tollbooth, a map of unfamiliar lands, coins and a rule book. Having nothing better to do, he drives his small electric car through the booth and finds himself on a road in a strange country. He passes the land of Expectations, where the Whether Man talks in circles, and drifts into the Doldrums, a gray place where the sleepy Lethargians have made thinking against the law. He is rescued by Tock, a watchdog whose body is a ticking alarm clock, and escapes only by starting to think. They reach Dictionopolis, a city of words, where letters and words are sold at the Word Market, and fall in with the boastful Humbug and the Spelling Bee. A brawl lands Milo in a dungeon, where the Which, Faintly Macabre, explains the kingdom's sorrow. The old King of Wisdom had two sons, King Azaz the Unabridged of Dictionopolis, who prizes words, and the Mathemagician of Digitopolis, who prizes numbers, and two adopted daughters, the princesses Rhyme and Reason, who settled every dispute. When the princesses ruled that words and numbers are equally important, the brothers banished them to the Castle in the Air, and the kingdom has had neither rhyme nor reason since. At a royal banquet where the guests literally eat their words, Milo volunteers to rescue the princesses, and Azaz gives him a box of all the words he knows. The travelers meet Alec Bings, who sees through things; Chroma the Great, whose orchestra plays the colors of the world, which Milo throws into chaos by conducting it himself; Dr. Dischord and the awful DYNNE; and the Soundkeeper of the Silent Valley. They jump to the Island of Conclusions and must swim back through the Sea of Knowledge. The Dodecahedron leads them to Digitopolis, its number mine and its staircase to Infinity, where Milo argues the Mathemagician into consenting to the quest. In the Mountains of Ignorance they escape the Everpresent Wordsnatcher, the faceless Terrible Trivium, the Demon of Insincerity, the Gelatinous Giant and the Senses Taker, reach the Castle in the Air, and bring the princesses down as Tock flies them clear. The armies of Wisdom rout the demons, the brothers are reconciled, and the kingdom celebrates. Milo drives home to find he has been gone about an hour. The next day the tollbooth has vanished, leaving a note for him, and he discovers that his own world is full of things to do. The book was published in 1961 by Epstein & Carroll, distributed by Random House, with drawings by Jules Feiffer.

Plot or Argument

• Chapters 1-2: Milo, Expectations and the Doldrums

  The bored Milo drives through the mysterious tollbooth, meets the Whether Man, sinks into the Doldrums among the Lethargians, and is freed by Tock once he begins to think.

• Chapters 3-5: Dictionopolis

  The Word Market, the Spelling Bee and the Humbug; a quarrel scatters the letters, and the officious Officer Shrift sentences Milo and Tock to the dungeon.

• Chapter 6: Faintly Macabre's Story

  The Which tells how the feud of Azaz and the Mathemagician led to the banishment of Rhyme and Reason to the Castle in the Air.

• Chapters 7-8: The Royal Banquet and the Quest

  Guests eat their words; Milo undertakes to rescue the princesses, receives Azaz's box of words, and the reluctant Humbug is volunteered as guide.

• Chapters 9-12: Points of View, Colors and Sounds

  Alec Bings and the city of Reality, Chroma's color symphony and Milo's disastrous attempt to conduct it, Dr. Dischord and the DYNNE, and the Soundkeeper's Silent Valley.

• Chapters 13-15: Conclusions and Digitopolis

  A leap to the Island of Conclusions, the Dodecahedron, the number mine, subtraction stew, the stair to Infinity, and Milo's logical victory over the Mathemagician.

• Chapters 16-18: The Mountains of Ignorance

  The Wordsnatcher, the Terrible Trivium, the Demon of Insincerity, the Gelatinous Giant and the Senses Taker try to stop the travelers before they climb to the Castle in the Air.

• Chapters 19-20: The Return of Rhyme and Reason; Good-by and Hello

  The princesses are rescued, the demons routed, the kingdom restored; Milo returns home, finds the tollbooth gone, and sees his own world anew.

Characters

• Milo, protagonist

  A boy bored with everything, who becomes curious, thoughtful and brave on his journey through the Kingdom of Wisdom.

• Tock, watchdog companion

  A dog with an alarm clock for a body, who hates wasted time and stays loyal to Milo throughout.

• The Humbug, companion

  A pompous, cowardly but finally faithful beetle-like insect who boasts of his ancient family.

• King Azaz the Unabridged, ruler of Dictionopolis

  The king of words, who believes language matters more than anything.

• The Mathemagician, ruler of Digitopolis

  Azaz's brother, the king of numbers, who believes mathematics matters more than anything.

• Rhyme and Reason, banished princesses

  The kingdom's wise and gentle judges, imprisoned in the Castle in the Air.

• Faintly Macabre, the not-so-wicked Which

  Former official chooser of words, who tells Milo the history of the kingdom from her dungeon.

• The Whether Man, greeter in Expectations

  A talker more concerned with whether there will be weather than with what it will be.

• Officer Shrift, policeman of Dictionopolis

  A short officer who is policeman, judge and jailer at once and hands out absurd sentences.

• Alec Bings, boy who grows downward

  A boy who sees through things and whose feet will reach the ground only when he is grown.

• Chroma the Great, conductor of color

  Leader of the orchestra that plays the colors of sunrise and sunset.

• The Dodecahedron, guide to Digitopolis

  A twelve-faced figure who wears a different expression on each face.

• The Terrible Trivium, demon

  A faceless, polite demon who keeps travelers busy forever at pointless tasks.

• The Senses Taker, demon

  An official who takes travelers' time with endless questions and tries to rob them of their senses.

Lessons

• Boredom is a way of not looking

  Milo begins the book thinking the world is dull, and he drifts into the Doldrums because he has stopped thinking at all. By the end the same room and the same town seem full of things to learn and do. Juster suggests that boredom lives more in the bored person than in the world, and that attention and curiosity are habits to be practiced.

  • Why does Milo get stuck in the Doldrums, and how does he get out?
  • What has changed when Milo comes home: the world, or Milo?
  • What is something that once seemed boring to you but became interesting when you learned more about it?

• Words and numbers need each other

  Azaz thinks words are everything and the Mathemagician thinks numbers are everything, and their quarrel drives away Rhyme and Reason. The princesses had ruled that both are equally important. The story teaches that the different kinds of learning belong together and that knowledge without judgment becomes foolishness.

  • Why do King Azaz and the Mathemagician quarrel?
  • What happens to the kingdom after Rhyme and Reason are banished?
  • Which do you like better, words or numbers, and why might you need both?

• Do not jump to conclusions

  Milo, Tock and the Humbug find themselves on the Island of Conclusions just by jumping there, and getting back means a long swim through the Sea of Knowledge. Juster turns a common saying into a real place to show how easy it is to decide things too quickly and how much work it takes to undo a hasty judgment.

  • How do the travelers get to the Island of Conclusions, and how do they leave?
  • Can you remember a time someone jumped to a conclusion about you or about something that happened?

• The enemies of learning

  The demons of the Mountains of Ignorance are not monsters with claws but things like the Terrible Trivium, who keeps people busy with pointless jobs, and the Senses Taker, who wastes their time with forms and questions. The book teaches children to recognize the quiet habits, like wasting time and never asking why, that keep people ignorant.

  • What jobs does the Terrible Trivium give the travelers, and why are they a trap?
  • Which demon do you think is the most dangerous, and why?
  • How do Milo and his friends escape the Senses Taker?

Context

The book appeared in 1961, when American schooling was much concerned with mathematics, science and reading after the launch of Sputnik in 1957. Juster's fantasy defends learning as a delight rather than a drill, and mocks rote memorization, pointless busywork and empty talk. It belongs to the line of word-playing nonsense fantasy that runs from Lewis Carroll, though Juster later said he had not read Alice when he wrote it.

Composition

Juster, then a young architect, received a Ford Foundation grant in 1960 to write a book about cities for children. Stalled on that project, he began writing about a boy named Milo instead. His neighbor and friend, the cartoonist Jules Feiffer, began drawing the characters as the manuscript grew. Jason Epstein bought the book from seven chapters and an outline, and Epstein & Carroll published it in 1961, distributed by Random House, in twenty chapters with Feiffer's illustrations.

Reception

Some early reviewers worried that its vocabulary was too hard for children, but Emily Maxwell in The New Yorker likened it to The Pilgrim's Progress as a book about the awakening of a lazy mind, and it found a large and lasting readership, with millions of copies sold. Chuck Jones directed a 1970 MGM film combining live action and animation, and the book has been adapted as an opera and a stage musical. A fiftieth-anniversary annotated edition by Leonard S. Marcus appeared in 2011.

Comparisons

• alices-adventures-in-wonderland

  Both send a bored child into a land run on puns and literal-minded logic, with absurd courts and officials; Alice wanders and finally rejects Wonderland's nonsense, while Milo is given a quest and restores order to the kingdom he visits.

• the-pilgrims-progress

  The New Yorker's first reviewer made this comparison: like Christian, Milo walks a map of allegorical places, escapes a slough of despond in the Doldrums, and passes through perils named for faults of the mind on the way to his goal.

• gullivers-travels

  Swift's Laputa, whose scholars live in a floating island lost in abstract mathematics and music, is an ancestor of Digitopolis and the Castle in the Air; both books satirize learning cut off from practical sense.

• the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe

  In both, an ordinary object in a child's house opens into another world, and the children return to find almost no time has passed; Lewis's Narnia is a land of sacrifice and redemption, Juster's Kingdom of Wisdom a land of learning and judgment.

• The Dot and the Line (Norton Juster)

  Juster's 1963 mathematical romance carries the Tollbooth's playful mingling of geometry and wordplay into a short picture book.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Every pun or saying that comes true, such as eating your words at the banquet, jumping to Conclusions, or Tock as a watchdog who is really a watch.
• How Milo changes from the bored boy of Chapter 1 to the boy who argues the Mathemagician into helping him.
• The gifts Milo receives along the way, from Azaz's box of words to the Mathemagician's pencil, and when each one is used.
• The demons of the Mountains of Ignorance and the bad habit each one stands for.
• Jules Feiffer's drawings of the Humbug, the Dodecahedron and the demons.

Key terms and names

Doldrums

In sailing, a calm sea where ships cannot move. In the book, a gray place where no one is allowed to think, and where Milo gets stuck.

Dictionopolis

King Azaz's city of words, with a market where letters and words are bought and sold.

Digitopolis

The Mathemagician's city of numbers, with a mine where numbers are dug like jewels.

Watchdog

A dog that keeps guard. Tock is a watchdog with a real watch, an alarm clock, for a body.

Unabridged

Not shortened. King Azaz the Unabridged is named like a complete dictionary that leaves no word out.

Rhyme and Reason

The two banished princesses. When something makes no sense, people say it has neither rhyme nor reason, which is just what happens to the kingdom without them.

Trivium

The Terrible Trivium is a demon of trivial, pointless jobs. Students of the old liberal arts will know that the word first named the three arts of grammar, logic and rhetoric, the very opposite of wasted work.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What is inside the package Milo finds in his room, and what does he do with it?
2. Comprehension Why did King Azaz and the Mathemagician send Rhyme and Reason away?
3. Comprehension Who are Milo's two companions on his quest, and how is each one helpful?
4. Interpretation Milo gets into the Doldrums by not thinking. Why does he have to start thinking to get out?
5. Interpretation The Terrible Trivium is polite and never threatens anyone. Why is he still a demon?
6. Interpretation The tollbooth's first label and last note are both addressed to Milo. How do the two notes show how much Milo has changed?
7. Big Question Is learning worth doing even if no one makes you do it? Why?

Faith Connections

• Proverbs 4:5-7 (Scripture)

  Solomon tells his son to get wisdom and understanding above all. Milo's quest through the Kingdom of Wisdom begins when he stops thinking learning is useless and ends when he wants to know everything.

• Proverbs 18:13 (Scripture)

  The proverb calls it folly to answer a matter before hearing it. The Island of Conclusions turns that folly into a place, reached by one jump and left only by a long swim through the Sea of Knowledge.

• Ephesians 5:15-16 (Scripture)

  Paul urges believers to walk wisely and redeem the time. Tock, who hates wasted time, and the Terrible Trivium, who steals it with pointless tasks, show children both halves of that command.

• Augustine, Confessions IV (Great Conversation)

  Augustine recalls studying the liberal arts without seeing what they were for. Milo too must learn that words and numbers are not ends in themselves but serve truth and good judgment, which is why the kingdom needs Rhyme and Reason.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Words without numbers and numbers without words split the kingdom of knowledge into quarreling halves, and without good judgment both become nonsense. Milo, who began by thinking all learning useless, discovers in each land that every subject is wonderful when it is understood. Therefore learning is whole and delightful, and the enemies of the mind are not hard subjects but laziness, triviality and hasty judgment.

Rhetorical device: literalized idiom. Juster turns figures of speech into events: the banquet guests in Chapter 7 must eat their words, the travelers in Chapter 13 jump to the Island of Conclusions, and the kingdom has lost its Rhyme and Reason.

Debate: Resolved: Words are more important than numbers.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Milo meets many characters who are foolish in different ways, such as the Whether Man, Officer Shrift and the Terrible Trivium. Choose two and explain what each teaches Milo about how not to think.

Comparison with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Alice and Milo both fall into worlds full of word games and silly rules. Compare how each child reacts to the nonsense around them, and decide which child learns more from the journey.

Medical Lens

The book is not about illness. Its opening, though, gives an unusually exact child's-eye portrait of apathy: Milo cannot see the point of learning, going anywhere or doing anything, and the Doldrums and the Lethargians, who spend the day not thinking and not laughing, make that state into a place. This is boredom and the old vice of sloth or acedia rather than melancholia as a disease, and Juster's cure is attention, effort and curiosity. Juster is reported to have had a form of synesthesia, which some readers connect with Chroma's orchestra of colors; treat that link as a reading.

• Chapter 1

  Milo's opening listlessness: everything seems a waste of time and nothing interests him.

  Melancholia Depression
• Chapter 2

  The Doldrums, where the Lethargians have outlawed thinking and laughing; Milo leaves only when he starts to think.

  Melancholia Depression

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Invent a new land in the Kingdom of Wisdom built on a common saying, the way the Island of Conclusions is built on jumping to conclusions, and write Milo's visit there.

• Classroom

  Hold a Word Market: each student sets up a stall selling one kind of word (long words, words for colors, words that sound like what they mean) and trades with the others.

• Dialogue

  Write the argument King Azaz and the Mathemagician might have about whether words or numbers are more important, and then let Rhyme and Reason settle it.

• Essay

  Choose one demon of the Mountains of Ignorance and explain what real habit it stands for and how a student could defeat it.

• Poetry

  Write a poem about a sunrise as Chroma's orchestra would play it, naming the instruments that play each color.

Further Reading

• The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster; annotated by Leonard S. Marcus

  Fiftieth-anniversary edition (2011) with drafts, sketches and notes on the book's making.

• The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics, Norton Juster

• The Phantom Tollbooth (1970 film), Directed by Chuck Jones (MGM)

• Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll

  Carroll's second Alice book, with its chess-board journey and Humpty Dumpty's views on words.