The Iron Giant

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.