What is a monster? In this blog post, Blue Route staffer Alex Margies examines the graphic novel The Girl in the Fields, providing some important insights about how to develop complex, memorable characters along the way.
By Alex Margies
A “monster” is commonly boiled down to “something scary,” but there is nuance to the definition. In her short graphic novel The Girl in the Fields, Abby Howard includes a typical “monster” figure who ends up being human in everything except appearance to lure a first-time reader into labeling her a monster. Howard’s misdirection leads the reader to a revelation: a “monster” is simply something that represents a threat to one’s accepted “normal” based on rigid assumptions.
Howard subtly introduces her idea of monstrosity in the story’s opening, in which she implies that a desire to force something unfamiliar into something comfortable is based in the fear of the unfamiliar “monster.” Frankie, the protagonist, harshly rebukes their conservative parents, who want to turn them into a “normal person” and stifle their authentic self, an idea emphasized by Frankie’s mother’s insistence on calling them Francine, their given name, rather than their preferred name (Howard 6). At this point, nothing fitting the role of the classic monster has appeared yet, but through the behavior of Frankie’s parents, the reader is already being exposed to the idea of monstrosity as a mutable and sometimes flawed concept.
Howard expands on the flaws of rigid expectations and labels by introducing Clara, a mysterious entity who is hidden behind a fence for most of the story. A genre-savvy reader will realize that this story is titled “The Girl in the Fields,” meaning Clara, as a girl in a field, seemingly fits the position of the titular monster. Notably, however, Clara does not actually do anything to suggest malicious intent, and she only fits the monster role if the reader follows preexisting assumptions.
Later in the story, Frankie jumps the fence onto their farmer neighbor’s property. If the reader attempts to view the farmer with the same rigid mindset that labels Clara as the monster, he seems like an innocent person whose crops are suffering. However, the farmer is quickly revealed to be more monstrous than anything else in the story, trying to sacrifice Frankie to heal his withered crops. Similarly to Frankie’s parents and a first-time reader, the farmer is also stuck unquestioningly following archaic traditions. While attempting to ensure a bountiful harvest through a human sacrifice is much more extreme than sticking to flawed assumptions, the core of the behavior is the same. Throughout this sequence, Howard thrusts her previously veiled message into the spotlight by creating a character whose refusal to adapt his thoughts to his surroundings directly endangers the protagonist.
In the climax of the story, Howard emphasizes the importance of interpreting based on real, current sources though Clara’s heroic actions. Frankie’s life is saved by Clara, whom, again, most people would likely expect to be a cliché monster. Clara saves Frankie’s life, demonstrating self-sacrifice, the purest form of humanity. Thus, Howard guides the reader to arrive at her position: that one’s monstrosity should be determined by only their tangible qualities, not pre-formed conclusions.
In the final scene, Howard presents a microcosm of the entire story as Frankie undergoes the same realization Howard aims to induce in the reader. The story ends with Frankie and Clara’s first face-to-face interaction. When Frankie sees that Clara is some underground creature that does not fit conventional definitions of “human,” they initially recoil, much like a reader who initially suspects Clara. However, crucially, once Frankie realizes that Clara’s intentions are genuine and that she just saved their life, they allow her to touch their face, and the two share a warm moment as the story concludes (Howard 64). In short, Howard allows Frankie to undergo the same mental process she wants from the reader to call out the flaws in the reader’s probable expectations of the story. We love a classic monster, but Howard asks us really think about what that label means before we throw it around.
