Left and Right Feet
Every creature in the story have both a left and a right foot—at the very least. This universality reflects a greater sameness than all the many differences. Therefore, the possession of right and left feet symbolizes the way that people are much more the same than they are different.
The Different Feet
From that position of sameness, the book proceeds to reveal how everybody also has their own unique differences. Although called “The Foot Book” the subject really isn’t feet, but opposites. The differences in feet are situated for the most part in opposition to each other—up/down, wet/dry etc.—and so these oppositional pairs become a symbol for how everyone has their differences yet are still basically the same.
Feet
As should be obvious in light of the above, the feet in “The Foot Book” are not really just feet. Feet are symbols for people and, in fact, all living creatures. Distilling people down to literally their foundation upon which they exist makes it much easier to reveal the paradox of how everyone can be so incredibly different and yet remain essentially almost exactly alike.
The Clown and the Pig
“Clown feet” and “pig feet” are introduced into the book as the first pairing that are not strictly antagonistic oppositional pairs. “Up/down” precedes the clown to fit the rhyme while “small feet/big feet” sits on the page opposite “pig feet.” The clown and the pig serve to symbolize how opposites can be more complex: humans/animals.
The Corner Lot
An image occurs near the end of the book showing a busy street corner. As the unnamed protagonist looks on in wonder, a veritable parade of different looking “feet” are walking past. In the background is a house with yet another different-looking pair of feet. The accompanying text—“In the house and on the street, how many, many feet you meet” situates that corner lot as a symbol the world in which we live and its amazing population of differences among the sameness.
