Summary
Chapter 17: Unwelcoming Committee
Milo, Tock, and the Humbug work on their tasks for a long time and begin to realize they are getting nowhere. The elegant man introduces himself as the Terrible Trivium who is the demon of petty, useless tasks. He promises them fun and ease, and they begin to be beguiled by his words.
Suddenly, though, a voice breaks the spell and urges them to run. They follow the voice but end up in a deep pit. A creature cackles down that he is a monster, but he turns out to be a small furry creature with worried eyes. He admits he is the demon of insecurity and bursts into tears and runs off.
Tock has Milo climb on him and then the Humbug on his shoulders, and they manage to get out of the pit. Not long after, though, they end up in the clutches of the Gelatinous Giant, who resembles a mountain. He roars that he has no real shape and mimics whatever is near him. He decides he will eat them even though Milo asks him to help rescue the princesses. Milo comments that he has a better idea and when the giant says he hates ideas, Milo threatens to release all the ideas from the box. The giant lets them go in fear and rage.
The demons all over the land begin to amass, having heard of the travelers’ presence. They creep and crawl toward Milo and his friends, who run as fast as they can to the castle.
Chapter 18: The Castle in the Air
Racing as fast as they can, they finally espy the staircase leading up into the sky. When they approach, they encounter a small round man who briskly asks for their names. He introduces himself as the Senses Taker and asks them question after question after question. Milo begins to despair, but he and his friends begin to see visions of wonderful things. The spell is broken when he accidentally drops his gift bag and the sounds burst forth discordantly.
The Senses Taker cackles that he steals people’s sense of duty and proportion and more, but rues that he cannot take their sense of humor. Before he can say more, they see the demons approaching and start ascending the dizzy, narrow stairs.
It is a terrifying and precipitous climb, but they finally reach the Castle. The two lovely princesses greet them. Milo is struck by their beauty and grace. Reason tells them they are safe and should rest for a moment. She also encourages Milo not to fret about the mistakes he has made, and Rhyme chimes in that it is learning what to do with what you learn that matters. Everything has a purpose and affects everyone and everything.
Below they hear a tremendous crash; the demons destroyed the staircase. The Humbug asks how they will get down and Tock says that because time flies, he can help. The princesses sit on Tock, and Milo and the Humbug hold on tightly, as Tock flies them out of the castle.
Chapter 19: The Return of Rhyme and Reason
When they alight, they still have to flee the screaming, ravenous demons. A multitude of demons have amassed by now, including the Horrible Hopping Hindsight, the Gorgons of Hate and Malice, the Overbearing Know-it-all, the Threadbare Excuse, and of course Trivium and the Giant.
Milo and the others are almost to the wide path outside the mountains, but the demons overtake them. Incredibly, though, they see the Armies of Wisdom before them, joined by friends like Dr. Dischord and the DYNNE, the Soundkeeper, Azaz and the Mathemagician, Chroma the Great, and the Spelling Bee. They defeat the monstrous creatures and force them back to their hovels.
The five advisers to Azaz rush to Milo and offer him many words of congratulations. The kingdom is filled with elation and celebration. People break into cheers and cries of delight, and the victors parade through the streets.
As Milo sits with the two kingly brothers, they tell him what they’d not told him before – that his journey was impossible. However, they add, “so many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible” (247).
The celebrations begin, and include parades and song and a royal banquet. Unfortunately, Milo realizes he will have to return home. He sadly bids his friends farewell and thanks them for what they taught him.
Chapter 20: Good-by and Hello
Milo heads back toward the tollbooth and wonders how long he’s been gone. He assumes it has been several weeks. He deposits his coin in the booth and finds himself in his room; only an hour has passed.
The next day, Milo goes to school but is anxious to return home to the tollbooth. He plans to go on another adventure. When he enters his room, though, he is dismayed to see the tollbooth is gone. He finds a note that thanks him for completing his trip and that other boys and girls will now get to use the tollbooth. He will no doubt find many marvelous things to see on his own. The signature is blurry and cannot be read.
At first Milo is lonely and dismayed, and he misses his friends. However, he notices the sky outside is blue and the trees are lovely and green. There are walks to take, caterpillars to watch, and voices to hear. Inside his own room are things to build and make; there is music to play and songs to sing. Milo is happy, and jumps to his feet and proclaims that he would like to make another trip, but doesn’t know when he will have time to do so since there are so many things to do right here.
Analysis
Milo’s heroic journey has finally come to a close. He made it away from the clutches of the Terrible Trivium and the other demons, rescued the princesses and brought them back to the kingdom, and returned back home equipped with his new lessons. Looking at Campbell’s steps, we can start with the allies and enemies. The Terrible Trivium is usually considered one of the more truly disturbing characters; his blank face, beguiling persona, and charisma unsettle and entice in equal parts. Juster based him off of his own tendency toward becoming bogged down in trivia and procrastination, which no doubt adds to the character’s power. The Sisyphean tasks Milo, Tock, and the Humbug receive are also terrible to contemplate, and tellingly it is not even their own ingenuity that helps them escape. Other enemies include the myriad of demons the characters face on their path to the Castle, as well as the obnoxious and devious Senses Taker.
The demons populate the “approach” and “ordeal” portion of the journey. Like Alice nearing the rabbit and encountering the Red Queen, Frodo and Sam making it to the edge of Mordor, and Dorothy arriving at Oz, Milo, Tock, and the Humbug rush toward their end goal. It is one of the more perilous moments; Juster writes, “Like a giant corkscrew, the stairway twisted through the darkness, steep and narrow and with no rail to guide them. The wind howled cruelly in an effort to tear them loose, and the fog dragged clammy fingers down their back; but up the giddy flight they went, each helping the others, until at last the clouds parted, the darkness fell away, and a glow of golden sunrays warmed their arrival” (231). Indeed, this passage can encapsulate the whole journey from beginning to end.
The “ordeal” concludes with the final battle between the demons and the Armies of Wisdom, populated with allies Milo made on his journey. It is significant that Milo doesn’t defeat the demons all by himself; he is no larger-than-life hero, no Odysseus or King Arthur. Rather, he needs his friends and allies to help, and he is open about needing the help and appreciating it. Tock in particular is indispensable for his wisdom, practicality, and even physical strength. In an interview, Juster explained, “Tock was inspired by the old radio program ‘Jack Armstrong.’ I was looking for companions for Milo to travel with and the first one needed to be stalwart and dependable and truthful and you could bet your life on him and he’d always be there in an emergency.”
Milo’s “reward” of the journey is primarily in lessons learned and the newfound purpose, curiosity, and fulfillment he will feel when he returns home. Reason assures him, “You must never feel badly about making mistakes” (233) and Rhyme tells him “it’s not just learning things that’s important. It’s learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things at all that matters” (233). This has echoes of Gandalf’s speech to Frodo regarding our inability to control how much time is given to us in this life but how we do have the ability to control what we do with that time. Rhyme also adds, “whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else” (233). Later both the Mathemagician and King Azaz articulate another important lesson: “so many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible” (247).
Milo’s “road back” opens before him almost against his will. He thinks he will stay in this wonderful world, but learns he must return to his own world. His disappointment is somewhat mitigated by the fact that he assumes he can use the tollbooth again to escape, but when he returns home from school the next day, he realizes it is gone forever. The final stage of the journey that applies to Phantom is the “resurrection.” It is perhaps too dramatic a word here, but Milo is certainly reborn in some sense. His moments of doubt and loneliness pass and he emerges stronger, more content, and more self-aware than ever. No longer bored and depressed and opposed to arbitrary learning, he realizes “there were voices to hear and conversations to listen to in wonder, and the special smell of each day” (255). He feels “the excitement of everything he didn’t know” and feels a sense of thrill about “the worlds to imagine and then someday make real” (256). As critic Adam Gopnik asserts about the novel’s message, “Learning isn’t a set of things we know but a world we enter.”
