61 pages • 2 hours read
Norton JusterThe Phantom Tollbooth
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1961A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Introduction-Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary
Aspiring architect Norton Juster became interested in how people perceive their environment. He got a grant from the Ford Foundation to write a book on urban planning. Partway through the project, he realized the work wasn’t leading in the direction he’d hoped. Exhausted, he took a break. A chance encounter in a restaurant—with a kid who wanted to know what the biggest possible number was—got Juster thinking about his own childhood questions. He began to sketch out the story that became The Phantom Tollbooth.
A neighbor, artist Jules Feiffer, took an interest in the children’s story and agreed to illustrate it. An editor read a partial draft and got Juster a contract to finish the book for publication. The urban planning book never was completed.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Milo”
Milo is bored. Nothing seems important to him, his school lessons least of all. He heads home to his eighth-floor apartment, goes to his room, sits, and stares at his unused toys.
Milo notices something new—a very large package in one corner. Attached is a blue envelope addressed, “FOR MILO, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME” (12). It’s not his birthday or a holiday, and he hasn’t been especially good. He opens the envelope anyway. Inside are instructions for assembling the package contents: a “turnpike tollbooth,” complete with payment coins, a book of rules, and a map that depicts “lands beyond.”
Milo assembles the tollbooth and then opens the map. It shows, in colorful detail, an interesting region that he’s never heard of. He points at a random place on the map: “Dictionopolis.” He dusts off his child-sized electric car, climbs in, approaches the tollbooth, puts a coin in the slot, and drives on through.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Beyond Expectations”
Milo finds himself motoring along on a country highway. It’s a beautiful day, and the flowers and trees are brightly colored. At a house, a sign reads, “WELCOME TO EXPECTATIONS […] INFORMATION, PREDICTIONS, AND ADVICE CHEERFULLY OFFERED. PARK HERE AND BLOW HORN” (17). Milo does so, and from the house hurries a small, bearded man in a long coat who greets Milo eagerly, repeating everything he says as “welcome, welcome, welcome” (18). The man introduces himself as the “Whether Man”—he believes it’s more important to know whether there’ll be weather than what type it’ll be.
Milo asks if he’s on the road to Dictionopolis; the Whether Man replies that it might be, but in any case, it’s a road to somewhere. He releases a set of balloons to check the wind, but they blow away in several directions. Milo asks what sort of place Expectations is; the Whether Man says it is the place people go to on their way to where they’re headed. He opens an umbrella in case it rains. As Milo drives away, he notices a thunderstorm that breaks above the Whether Man but nowhere else.
The road descends into a verdant valley. Milo enjoys the drive and stops paying attention to where he’s going. At a fork in the road, he casually ignores the sign pointing left and instead takes the other path. Quickly, the sky turns dark, and the landscape becomes gray. Mile after monotonous mile, he drives, going slower and slower until the car stops altogether. Milo wonders aloud where he is; a faraway voice intones, “the…Dol…drums” (21).
Milo looks around: Everywhere, he sees small human-like beings who are the same color as whatever they sit or lie against. These are the Lethargarians. One falls asleep on his shoulder. Milo thinks he’s lost; a Lethargarian warns him not to think, as it’s against the law. Milo checks his rule book and finds it’s “ordinance 175389-J.” He says it’s a silly law and that everyone thinks, but a Lethargarian points out that Milo often doesn’t think, as when he made the turnoff to the Doldrums.
The Lethargarians seem so silly that Milo laughs, but he’s warned that laughter, too, is unlawful. Other than that, Lethargarians can do anything they want as long as it’s nothing. The only creature who doesn’t is a “terrible watchdog” that bounds around, trying to prevent people from wasting time.
Just then, the watchdog appears, growling, and the Leghargarians scatter. The creature is a dog, except his body is a large, ticking alarm clock. The dog asks about Milo’s business; Milo answers that he’s simply “killing time,” at which the dog becomes angry, and his clock’s alarm goes off. Milo asks for a way out of the Doldrums; the watchdog says that Milo got stuck there because he wasn’t thinking and that, to escape, he should begin to think.
The dog hops into the car with Milo, who starts thinking about anything—flying fish, swimming birds, strange numbers—and the car begins to move again. Soon they’re back in the sunny, colorful countryside. Milo continues to think, and the car shoots forward.
Introduction-Chapter 2 Analysis
The opening chapters introduce Milo, a young boy bored by life, and sets him out on a grand, if stressful, journey of discovery and growth.
The Lands Beyond exist nowhere on Earth; as such, they’re fantastical realms, and the book thus is a fantasy adventure. The author serves as narrator and relates the tale entirely from Milo’s viewpoint; the book, therefore, takes the form of third-person limited perspective.
The book wastes no time: Protagonist Milo, young and bored, quickly finds himself in the Lands Beyond, where he’s out of his element and over his head. Milo immediately discovers that he must use his noggin to get himself out of trouble; it’s the first of many lessons about growing up mentally that he learns during the story.
Milo’s first encounter is with the Whether Man, whose name is a pun on weather, and, indeed, the man can’t make up his mind what the weather will be. Instead, like a careful bureaucrat, the Whether Man makes no decisions but instead bamboozles Milo with jargon. The Whether Man is the first of many officials whom Milo meets whose purpose isn’t to be useful but to be proper and correct.
Milo becomes quite caught up in his new adventure and is eager to explore this strange new place, foregrounding the theme of The Wonders of Learning. Questions replace ennui, and everything the boy sees stimulates his interest. Already, the Tollbooth has relieved him of his chronic boredom, but in its place is a challenge that demands the boy’s best efforts.
Milo’s newfound curiosity is a lesson in itself: It’s a key to making discoveries and gaining knowledge. The author’s point is that a proper education isn’t about dry, rote learning—Milo would heartily concur—but about wonder and fascination and the urge to know more.
Milo befriends Tock, a watchdog who’s literally a walking alarm clock. Tock’s purpose is to keep people from lassitude by sounding his alarm; he’s a voice of reason in a land otherwise beset by absurdity. The Doldrums, where the two meet, represents a kind of hell that awaits people who refuse to think or take action to solve their problems. It’s a warning to Milo that his bored lassitude might one day transform him into something of a Lethargarian, and it’s a lesson that introduces the theme of The Pitfalls of Learning. Milo takes the hint, and his adventure promptly moves forward.
