Iron John

As is my wont, I was chatting with the local librarian about my son’s aversion to scary movies, so she pointed me to the fairy tales section. Fairy tales are perfect for boys from five to seven. It helps them to address their fears.

On my journey to learning the craft of writing, I’ve encountered Joseph Campbell who wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell talks at length about the symbolism of ancient stories and fables, of religious ceremony and rites of passage. There is ubiquity across cultures of certain themes, an eerie sameness to the stories of gods that have never met—virgin birth for instance. Stories that harness the power of symbolism reach into the murky depths of our imagination and manipulate emotions we do not understand.

A common male theme is to be taken from the mother, leaving home to be raised to manhood by another male who is not the father. You see this all the time. Look no further than Star Wars for an example. To be a real man in some instances involves the actual slaying of the father.

Two nights ago I read to Jackson one of the books I brought home that day called Iron John. A savage, wild man, is caught and caged by the King. The King’s son loses a golden ball into the cage, and asks the man to give it back. The man, who introduces himself as Iron John, agrees on the condition that the boy release him. The boy says he does not have the key, but Iron John tells him to find the key under his mother’s pillow. The boy does as he is told and unlocks the cage, but on the condition that Iron John take him along, as the boy’s father would surely kill him for his deed.

Iron John raises the boy to manhood. And the story goes on.

The poet Robert Bly wrote a famous book (but I have never heard of it) called Iron John: A Book about Men. Apparently this book caused quite a ripple in the feminist community, for reasons that are too haughty for me to understand. Bly asserts that this ancient fable, older than the Bible, contains lessons that are meaningful for men. One conclusion, and I have read this even with Joseph Campbell, is that our society has taken important ceremony away from our young boys that helped us make that tough transition to manhood.

For now, I tend to agree, because there is something missing from our lives. I’m not sure that men even exist anymore really. The strong man of the past suddenly became Archie Bunker, and because of a flaw in the fabric the whole garment was tossed. It’s gauche anymore to stand up for the male condition—because that would be anti-feminist? Our whole society has become weak, afraid to say what is clearly in front of our faces. A man has instincts, desires that are built in. Do we act on all of them? Of course not. But should we be ashamed and hide because they exist? See my last answer. It’s time for a whole lot more honesty people. I don’t just mean speaking it. Let’s also hear it without rancor.