Header image with four cats and the text: Pussreboots, a book review nearly every day. Online since 1997
Now 2024 Previous Articles Road Essays Road Reviews Author Black Authors Title Source Age Genre Series Format Inclusivity LGBTA+ Artwork WIP

Recent posts


Month in review

Reviews
Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro
Bob by Wendy Mass
Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher
Dear Poppy by Ronni Arno
Decaffeinated Corpse by Cleo Coyle
Delicious in Dungeon, Volume 1 by Ryoko Kui
Depth by Lev A.C. Rosen
Don't Cry for Me, Hot Pastrami by Sharon Kahn
Effie Starr Zook Has One More Question by Martha Freeman
The Enchanted Egg by Kallie George
Family Game Night and Other Catastrophes by Mary E. Lambert
Finding Perfect by Elly Swartz
French Pressed by Cleo Coyle
The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call by Kelly Thompson and Corin Howell
Hello Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall
Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King
Lemons by Melissa Savage
The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger
Night of the Animals by Bill Broun
One Good Thing about America by Ruth Freeman
The River at Night by Erica Ferencik
Runaways: Battleworld by Noëlle Stevenson
Two Times a Traitor by Karen Bass
Wandering Son: Volume 4 by Takako Shimura
Whatshisface by Gordon Korman
The Witch's Glass by Holly Grant
The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher
You Go First by Erin Entrada Kelly
Young Frances by Hartley Lin

Miscellaneous
August 2018 Sources
August 2018 Summary
The great logic puzzle of life
A Holmesian Approach to Magnum PI
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (September 03)
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (September 10)
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (September 17)
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (September 24)

Road Essays
FFFFCC: Orphans, Utopia and Mazes
FFCC66: Orphans traveling off road through time
FF9966: Orphans off road in the wildlands
99FFFF-990000: Scarecrows and Minotaurs

Previous month


Rating System

5 stars: Completely enjoyable or compelling
4 stars: Good but flawed
3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish

Reading Challenges

Canadian Book Challenge: 2024-2025

Beat the Backlist 2024

Ozathon: 12/2023-01/2025

Artwork
Chicken Prints
Paintings and Postcards


Privacy policy

This blog does not collect personal data. It doesn't set cookies. Email addresses are used to respond to comments or "contact us" messages and then deleted.


99FFFF-990000: Scarecrows and Minotaurs: 09/06/18

99FFFF-990000: Scarecrows and Minotaurs

This week I'm taking a break from thematic analysis to focus the category of road narrative protagonist, the scarecrow / minotaur. While scarecrows and minotaurs seem like completely different kinds of characters, and really more often than not, monsters or secondary characters to a human protagonist, they function as obverse and reverse of the same thematic coin.

Scarecrow

A Scarecrow in its most literal depiction is a humanoid figure, usually male (or more precisely dressed in male styled clothing) made of rough material (burlap or canvas) and stuffed with hay, straw, or cornhusks. They are often associated with cornfields and feature in Halloween and horror stories but not always.

It's the not always that makes them interesting.

More broadly speaking, the Scarecrow is there to keep people and other creatures (crows, for instance) out of the fields. When the cornfield is serving as a literary barrier or shortcut for the road narrative, the scarecrow is often brought in as a horror element — a monster to catch or even kill trespassers.

But again, not always.

A few notable exceptions: Feathertop (Nathaniel Hawthorne), the Scarecrow of Oz (L. Frank Baum), Jack Pumpkinhead (L. Frank Baum), and Turniphead (Diane Wynn Jones). Feathertop, who serves as the stylistic prototype for Baum's Jack Pumpkinhead, is created by a witch to pull a prank on a high society party. Turns out, though, that most (maybe all) of the other attendees are also the witch's creation from previous years. He and Jack both have carved pumpkin faces and are brought to life through magic. The Scarecrow, meanwhile, is brought to life by usefulness. There wasn't any intentional magic used, just the sheer willpower of the Munchkin farmer who made him and his own desire to be as useful as possible. That though spirals into a free will desire to get down off his stick and explore the world with Dorothy (as well as get some brains). Finally, Turniphead, is a cursed scarecrow, made into the form to hide a prince and start a war.

The key thing about scarecrows, is that they are there to protect the cornfield (or whatever it is they have been placed in front of or in the middle of).

Minotaur

The Minotaur, meanwhile, derives from a single story, though there are many many retellings and pastiches. The Minotaur or Minos Bull is the half human, half bovine offspring of the Queen of Minos because of a revenge plot by Poseidon. The labyrinth exists to hide him away from the world. That he is also useful in disposing of pesky foreigners is a secondary "benefit."

Most of the Minotaur road narratives I've read so far have been with literal. There is David Elliot's poetic narrative that retells the myth from Asterion's point of view before and after his incarceration in the labyrinth. Steven Sherrill's modern day novels envision a now free Minotaur who has shed his original name and now just goes by the initial M.

But there are metaphoric minotaurs as well. The one that comes immediately to mind is Corwin and his siblings and extended family in the Chronicles of Amber series. They are a royal family who can travel between worlds via their ties to the "pattern" — a complex path that is somewhere between a maze and a labyrinth. For them, there is no escaping the pattern and for others, it can be (and usually is) deadly. Although they are not literally inside the pattern, they are so tied to it that they might as well be. It is that connection that makes them metaphorical minotaurs.

Scarecrows vs Minotaurs

The difference between these two is one of purpose and agency. The Scarecrow is there to protect the cornfield. The Minotaur is trapped by the labyrinth. Both can serve as "monsters in the middle" and both can be protagonists.

Works cited

See also

Comments  (2)


Lab puppy
Name:
Email (won't be posted):
Blog URL:
Comment:


Comment #1: Saturday, September 08, 2018 at 17:28:14

Libby

I’m no longer blogging, but just perusing the Sunday Salon for fun. Glad I came across this post - really inciteful. I never would have made these connections. There really is so much more than meets the eye to myths and fairy tales. Really interesting!!



Comment #2: Sunday, September 09, 2018 at 18:13:00

Pussreboots

Thank you for taking the time to comment. This post is part of a larger research project I'm doing for fun. I hope you take a look: Introduction to the road narrative project

Twitter Tumblr Mastadon Flickr Facebook Facebook Contact me

1997-2024 Sarah Sammis