The Iron Giant

“Gleefully it picked up the eye, and tucked it under its middle finger. The eye peered out, between the forefinger and thumb. Now the hand could see.”

The use of the adverb “gleefully” is intentional and adds a layer of personification to the Iron Man’s parts as they find one another. There is emotion behind them as well as a clear motivation to reunite. This stylistic choice sets the foundation for understanding the Iron Man as a complex and multifaceted character.

“An eye! There it was, blinking at them speechlessly beside a black and white pebble.”

The use of an exclamation mark adds emphasis and implies that the narrative has shifted toward the inner “thoughts” of the Iron Man’s parts. Detailed imagery is used in this scene, as each movement that each part makes is described, as is what they see and touch.

“The two lights rose into the sky. They were the giant figure’s eyes. A giant black figure, taller than a house, black and towering in the twilight, with green headlamp eyes. The Iron Man!”

There is a strong sense of foreboding in the humans’ first encounters with the Iron Man. They fear him and act out of this impulse rather than stopping to question and reflect. The challenge of Overcoming the Obstacle of Judgment begins with these initial assumptions about the Iron Man as an evil monster.

“Where were their tractors? Their earth-diggers? Their ploughs? Their harrows? From every farm in the region, all the steel and iron farm machinery had gone. Where to? Who had stolen it all?”

Repetition is used here to emphasize the volume and quantity of the farmers’ machinery and how much it has become a part of their lives. The Iron Man consumes all metal that he can find and is effectively a “cleanser” of the Earth in this regard. The Iron Man’s position as a machine that consumes other machines to improve the Earth is ironic and speaks to the Relationship Between the Natural and the Mechanical.

“Clink, Clink, Clink! went the nail on the knife.

And

CRASSSHHHH!

The Iron Man vanished.”

The dramatic moment in which the Iron Man falls into the pit and becomes trapped is the catalyst for a shift in perspective within Hogarth. The lines of this scene are carefully crafted in a poetic fashion, making use of indentation, onomatopoeia, and capitals to create powerful imagery of the Iron Man’s fall.

“So they did not see the great iron head, square like a bedroom, with red glaring headlamp eyes, and with the tablecloth, still with the chicken and the cheese, draped across the top of it, rising out of the top of the hillock, as the Iron Man freed himself from the pit.”

There are occasional moments of levity and dry humor in the Iron Man’s story, such as when he emerges from the hole still wearing the picnic blanket and food on his head. A simile is used to illustrate the sheer size of the Iron Man’s massive head.

“Now the Iron Man’s eyes were constantly a happy blue. He was no longer rusty. His body gleamed blue, like a new gun barrel. And he ate, ate, ate, ate—endlessly.”

The Iron Man’s eyes are an important symbol of his internal state of being and respond to his mood, thoughts, and intentions. When the Iron Man is given the opportunity to eat higher-quality metals, his health improves, and his body develops a sheen. The Iron Man, like humans themselves, consumes with no end in sight.

“One of the stars of the night had begun to change. This star had always been a very tiny star, of no importance at all.”

The description of the star as initially unimportant illustrates The Obstacle of Judgment and how often things are not as they seem. Like the Iron Man, the star was misjudged as insignificant; this judgment turned out to be grossly false.

“That tiny star was definitely getting bigger. And not just bigger. But bigger and Bigger and BIGger. Each night it was B I G G E R.”

Ted Hughes plays around with capitalization, a technique more often seen in poetry, and which demonstrates Hughes’s poetic instinct. There is a certain childish playfulness to this stylistic choice, and it is a unique approach to emphasizing the growth of the star by having the letters literally grow.

“The moon peered fearfully from low in the skyline and all the people of earth stayed up, gazing in fear at the huge black movement of wings that filled the night.”

The personification of the moon is used to show the all-consuming fear that enveloped the planet and even the moon as the star spirit approaches Earth. Like the Iron Man before it, but on a much larger scale, the star spirit appears with no explanation and sends the people of Earth into an immediate panic.

“The smoke of the explosions drifted out over the Pacific like a black, crawling continent.”

This powerful simile connects to the fact that the dragon has landed on the continent of Australia, and now the smoke from the armies of Earth’s attacks imitates the shape and size of a continent. It is a way of explaining the amount of weaponry used against the dragon to emphasize how large and powerful it is.

“Sit up and take notice, you great space-lizard.”

The Iron Man’s first direct dialogue comes in the story’s climax and comes as a surprise even though the reader is aware of the Iron Man’s sentience. The Iron Man speaks with profound confidence and power, demonstrating bravery and a willingness to sacrifice himself for the same people who once judged, feared, and trapped him.

“The monster gazed up at the sun. He felt strangely cold suddenly.”

In describing the dragon’s reaction to considering the idea of sitting on the sun, two directly opposite temperatures act as a powerful device and introduce irony into the dragon’s emotional state. The sun is extraordinarily hot, but the dragon’s fear leaves him bitterly cold.