The Phantom Tollbooth Symbols

The Castle in the Air

The Castle in the Air represents what happens when ideas aren’t grounded in rhyme and reason—and what happens when people get too caught up in their ideas to properly evaluate them.

To say something is…

The Tollbooth

The tollbooth represents imagination. Though it requires a coin to get through, Milo must also use his imagination to pass through the tollbooth to the Lands Beyond—once he arrives, he observes that what started as…

Gifts

The gifts Milo receives from the various people he meets, and how he ultimately uses those gifts, represent the learning process. As Milo travels through the Lands Beyond, meeting people and soaking up knowledge, people…

Time/Tock’s Alarm Clock

The way that the novel frames the concept of time and the character Tock (whose body is an alarm clock) shows that time is extremely valuable, but is often taken for granted anyway. When readers…