Rawhead Rex
by Clive Barker
The story begins with the argument that tourists have brought the village of Zeal to its knees. I confess I didn't understand these introductory paragraphs, followed by several vignettes of Zeal's residents, clergy, and one visiting family in battle with the giant, or "monster," Rawhead. The vignettes are slice-of-life glimpses into the country life. I found them charming, and I loved the details of Tomas Garrow's efforts to clear his field, Gwen Nicholson's frustration at the stubbornness of her pony, and even Declan Ewan, the psychologically unstable Verger. He senses that something extraordinary is coming his way. These are all long-time residents of Zeal.
On the other hand, Ronnie Milton is newly arrived and has not finished building his home yet. He vacillates between staying in the town and high-tailing it back to the city at various points in the story. It is a good thing for the rest of the townspeople that he decides to stay. Afraid to look like a coward in front of his neighbors, Ronnie's courage ultimately leads to the monster's death.
Barker writes of the demise of the townsfolk in a way that is graphic but not gratuitously so. Rawhead is an enemy of humankind, and because of that, he is the most frightening type of monster: he has a centuries-old hatred of and hunger for people. I can't imagine anything more horrifying than looking into the face of a being who means you harm, and worse has no pity. It would awaken an atavistic fear of predators of old when most humans feared being eaten. After all, this is why our ancestors huddled around fires.
Barker's description of Rawhead is, well--raw. His eyes are like wounds, "as though somebody had gouged them in the flesh of Rawhead's face then set two candles to flicker in the holes." His nostrils are "wet slits." His mouth is so wide that it seems to split his head in two. These descriptions are compelling because they are active: somebody "gouged" holes for his eyes. His mouth "splits" his head in two. The gory adjectives, and even the wetness of the nostril slits, combine to increase the horror by bringing to mind thoughts of injury. Wounds. Being slit open. I will try to remember this for the monster in my manuscript: use active images of wounding to describe it.
I'd like to know more about the mythology source that Barker called upon for Rawhead Rex. The method used to defeat him hearkens back to the David and Goliath story: both antagonists were giants killed by a weak person stone who wielded a stone. In Barker's story, it's a fat-cat city guy, rather than the boy, David. And the stone is a sculpture of a fertility goddess.
Rawhead is a Cthonic diety, a subterranean god of the underworld. In Man and His Symbols, Carl Jung writes:
"Envy, lust, sensuality, deceit, and all known vices are the negative, 'dark' aspect of the unconscious, which can manifest itself in two ways. In the positive sense, it appears as a 'spirit of nature", creatively animating Man, things, and the world. It is the 'cthonic spirit" that has been mentioned so often in this chapter. In the negative sense, the unconscious (that same spirit) manifests itself as a spirit of evil, as a drive to destroy." 1
Springtime is coming, and I'll be digging in my garden. I will think twice before proceeding if I come across any underground boulders.
C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols, ISBN 0-385-05221-9, p. 267.