A Very Lonely Little Boy

Aimee Bender is a very interesting writer. Her stories may read like fantasy, but I have found that these fantastical stories have more to say about real life than stories that read like real life. This is especially evident in the story “Ironhead”. This story about a couple who have heads of pumpkins who have three children: two who have pumpkinheads like their parents, and a young son who has an iron for a head.

The emotions in this story can be applied to real life in several different ways. The young boy with the ironhead is very lonely throughout the story. His parent’s don’t know how to really communicate with him on the same way as his sisters. Neither of his parents have ever had to experience having an iron for a head, so they can’t truly understand how he is feeling. The boy doesn’t identify with his family. They are all different from him, and he feels like an outsider. He can’t sleep at all, which only adds to his negative feelings. He also doesn’t fit in at school because the rest of the children figure he is this big, tough kid based on his head, but he really isn’t. He is a quiet, shy boy, who has no friends. The poor boy is so lonely that he goes into an appliance store to visit his extended “family” of the irons on the shelf. He even has a little party with them, which frightens his parents when the come to get him.

The mother’s reaction to her son’s death was very realistic. Even though she didn’t know how to connect with him, she did love him with all of her heart. She mourned her son in a way that made up for the lack of connection with him while he was alive. She put all of her love and emotion for him into mourning him. She was appalled with herself a few weeks later when she realized that time will continue to go on, even without her son there. I have lost someone close to me, and that realization is sometimes the hardest thing to come to terms with.

I also think that the way Bender writes this story plays up the separation between the little boy and the rest of the world, including his family. She continually uses the title of “ironhead” and “pumpkinhead” when describing the members of the family. She hardly ever uses “boy” or “son” to describe the ironhead, which I feel increases the separation between the little boy and the rest of the world.

(Sarah Jaworowicz, Post 11)