The short story ” Oh the places you will not go ” written by David Rakoff, one of the most
interesting stories of the writer, is about a man named Gregor Samsa that needs help. And
instead of turning to those nearby, he writes a letter to Dr. Seuss. Through out the whole
story we become more aware of how delicate situation is: Samsa wakes up one day only to
find out that he has turned into a giant cockroach, and as a result he turns in desperation for
a long distance cure to the good Doctor Seuss. In the story, Rakoff is clearly filling Samsa’
s letters with formality and mittel-european dread; while Seuss’ s responses are all in
rhyme. At the end, Rakoff’ s story in letters connects Dr. Seuss and Gregor Samsa to create
tragedy. To understand how he did so, we are going to analyze how his transformation
resulted to negative consequences and how tragic the situation is for both of the men.
Rakoff sets up the story by introducing Gregor Samsa, the man asking for help. The first
way that Rakoff’ s story in letters connects Dr. Seuss and Gregor Samsa to create tragedy is
by showing how Gregor’ s transformation resulted to several negative consequences. For
starters, not only that man gets transformed to a giant ” cockroach ” but that dramatic
change in appearance has held him back from going to work : ” I am usually in very fine
fettle in the morning. But as a result of my new condition, I find myself unable to go into
