The primary element that fits the quest archetype plot in "How the Animals Lost Their Tails and Got Them Back Traveling from Philadelphia to Medicine Hat" is the animals' journey to get their tails back from the Head Spotter of the Weather Makers. The story focuses on the animals' experiences during their journey from Philadelphia to Medicine Hat. The author describes the amusing train journey in detail; for example, a train that whimsically jumped on and off the tracks:
The main characters in this story are animals. Carl Sandburg introduces these characters in a comical manner:
Sandburg said he "attempts to catch fantasy, accents, pulses, eye flashes, lities:
As they pattered pitty-pat, pitty-pat, each with feet and toenails, ears and hair, everything but tails, into the Philadelphia union depot, they had nothing to say.
The story's theme is the disconnect from regular conventions of society. Sandburg provides a humorous depiction of the animals' meeting on a serious matter. He places animals with nonsensical names in real locales, such as Philadelphia and Minnesota, to juxtapose the real and the imaginary. He also depicts the animals taking part in meetings that have the same bureaucracy and forced formality often found in real-life meetings.
"It is no picnic to lose your tail and we are here for business," he said, banging his gavel again.
The animals' meeting offers an amusing representation of the bureaucratic meetings that humans often engage in:
"All in favor of the motion," said the chairman, "will clean their right ears with their right paws."
And all the blue foxes and all the yellow flongboos began cleaning their right ears with their right paws.
"All who are against the motion will clean their left ears with their left paws," said the chairman.
And all the blue foxes and all the yellow flongboos began cleaning their left ears with their left paws.
Sandburg's parody on the bureaucracy and formality of society piques the reader's interest by making the story comical and entertaining.
Sandburg's use of literary techniques such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, and nonsense words makes the story playful and cheerful.
The onomatopoeic words in the story enhance the reader's imagination of the events:
Then the blue foxes and the yellow flongboos pattered pitty-pat, pitty-pat, each with feet and toenails, ears and hair, everything except tails, pattered scritch scratch over the stone floors out into the train shed.
Alliteration and repetition make the story musical and rhythmic, giving it a captivating quality:
And there on a high stool in a high tower on a high hill sits the Head Spotter of the Weather Makers . . . A big wind blew up and blew and blew till all the tails of the animals blew off.
The author also uses nonsense words such as flongboo, parleyhoo, and flangwayers. These words make the story fascinating and engaging for children, who can use their imaginations to understand what these words represent. For example, a reader might try to imagine what a "flongboo" or a "flangwayer" looks like:
It is hard for the yellow flongboo to lose his tail because it lights up his way when he sneaks at night on the prairie, sneaking up on the flangwayers, the hippers and hangjasts, so good to eat.
These nonsense words also provide a comedic touch to the story:
The animals picked a committee of representatives to represent them in a parleyhoo to see what steps could be taken by talking to do something.
The mood of the story "How the Animals Lost Their Tails and Got Them Back Traveling from Philadelphia to Medicine Hat" is whimsical and comical. The humorous descriptions of the animals and their actions during their journey from Philadelphia to Medicine Hat aims to amuse readers. Sandburg's use of onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, and nonsense words makes the text upbeat and whimsical, and these devices help the reader visualize the characters and events. This comical, whimsical mood is consistent throughout the story.
