Once-ler

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The Once-ler is a fictional character created by Dr. Seuss in the children's story The Lorax.

The Once-ler is never actually seen in the story, although he does narrate it. All the reader views is his hands, which are green and humanoid. His body is always concealed.

Throughout the course of the story, the Once-ler shows blatant disregard for the environment for the sake of profit. By the end of the story, he has reformed, but only after he has done severe damage to the ecosystem by clearcutting the Truffula trees and polluting the environment with industrial waste, forcing the Swomee-swans, Brown Bar-ba-loots, and Humming-fish out of the area.

The Once-ler is a symbol of aggressive corporate greed, and the story The Lorax is a warning as to what can happen when greed is allowed to go too far unchecked.^{[citation needed]}

The Once-ler had removed the forest of truffula trees because when he moved there, he noticed their color and silky texture and decided he could make a new multi-purpose utility called a thneed, and thneed is a thing that everyone needs. Its It's a shirt. It's a sock. It's a glove. It's a hat. But it has other uses. Yes, far beyond that. You can use it for carpets. For pillows! For sheets! Or curtain! Or covers for bicycle seats. He began creating bigger axes and mashines and eventually turned the truffula tree forest into a huge company ground. The sluge made the humming fish leave, and poisoned the bar-ba-loot fruits, so the bar-ba-loots in their bar-ba-loot suits had to leave, and the smog choked the swomme-swans making them leave. The Once-ler, while upset to see the animals go, dismissed the Lorax's (The Lorax is the one who speeks for the trees.) pleadings until the last Truffula Tree got chopped down, leaving the Once-ler alone with the Lorax and a failed business in a desolate place under a dark smoggy sky, and the lorax who spoke for the trees after countless attempts to get the Once-ler to stop, picks himself up and leaves with a sign where he left reading "Unless."

At the end of the story, however, the Once-ler has learned from his experiences and attempts to correct the damage he has done by passing on the last remaining Truffula tree seed.

[edit] The Boondocks

Ed Wuncler, Sr. is a character from The Boondocks. He is a rich, white realtor and owner of the mortgage loan on the Freemans' house. He also represents greed, and is presumably an allusion to the Once-ler of Dr. Seuss.^{[citation needed]}