27 pages • 54 minutes read
Ted HughesThe Iron Giant
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaSymbols & Motifs
The Countryside and the Sea
The countryside and the sea are key motifs in The Iron Man, serving as a direct contrast to the Iron Man himself and acting as the setting of the story. Choosing to have this story unfold in a rural environment emphasizes how much the Iron Man stands out from his surroundings; if the story were to take place in the city, he would almost blend in as part of the environment. Seagulls are the first biological creatures to come into contact with the Iron Man, and his separated limbs are compared to a crab as they find one another. The Iron Man first appears on the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, physically moved by the weather around him: “He swayed in the strong wind that pressed against his back. He swayed forward, on the brink of the high cliff” (2). It is this same cliff where he is first spotted by a human, Hogarth, and the same sea to where the Iron Man consistently returns. The Relationship Between the Natural and the Mechanical is revealed in how the Iron Man functions in the rural environment in which he finds himself. He is impervious to any natural condition, whether it be wind, water, heat, or being buried underground. The Iron Man submerges himself in each natural element and comes out not only undefeated but stronger and wiser than before.
Metal and Machinery
Metal and machinery act as both a symbol and a motif in The Iron Man. The Iron Man himself is made of an unknown type of metal and seems to be alive. This in itself is contradictory to what most people assume would be some sort of robot or programmed machine. The Iron Man has his own intentions and his own emotions, and he consumes the metals of the Earth to sustain himself. He can be healthy or unhealthy. The Iron Man’s very existence, therefore, illustrates The Relationship Between the Natural and the Mechanical. The Iron Man consumes, thinks, and feels like a living being but is made of a seemingly inorganic substance. The world that the Iron Man lives in mimics the real world, filled with technology and machines that have dominion over the natural world around them. The farmers can dig massive holes and move the earth. At the same time, the people rely on the land to feed and sustain them and forget that they should respect it. The Iron Man, whether intentionally or simply due to his nature, effectively acts to cleanse the planet of humanity’s waste as it accumulates in the form of junk.
The Iron Man’s Eyes
The Iron Man’s eyes are a symbol of his connection to life and an indication of his sentience. Their color and intensity change and respond both to the Iron Man’s environment and his inner state of being. The Iron Man’s eyes may be green, red, white, purple, or blue, and each color has its own meaning and acts as its own form of communication. They glow red when he is searching for something or experiences an intense emotion, such as when he stands at the top of the cliff in the story’s exposition. Green eyes communicate a neutral mood, while purple and white only appear when the Iron Man is in severe distress. At the moment that the Iron Man is buried and realizes he cannot escape, his eyes rapidly change colors: “He glared up towards them, his eyes burned from red to purple, from purple to white, from white to fiery whirling black and red, and the cogs inside him ground and screeched, but he could not climb out of the steep-sided pit” (23). Finally, the Iron Man’s eyes turn blue when he is happy and healthy. When the Iron Man is taken to the junkyard and allowed to eat all sorts of rare metals, his eyes are “constantly a happy blue” (34). Through the Iron Man’s eyes, it is made clear that he is complex, intelligent, and as elusive as humans can at times be. His eyes also act as the bridge, creating The Relationship Between The Natural and the Mechanical.
