Leviathan - The Huxley

An airbeast was inside: a Huxley ascender, its tentacles in the grips of a dozen ground men. The beast pulsed and trembled as they drew it gently out, setting its translucent gasbag shimmering with the red light of the rising sun.

"A medusa," gasped the boy next to her.

Deryn nodded. This was the first hydrogen breather ever fabricated, nothing like the giant living airships of today, with their gondolas, engines, and observation decks.

The Huxley was made from the life chains of medusae - jellyfish and other venomous sea creatures - and was practically as dangerous. One wrong puff of wind could spook a Huxley, sending it diving for the ground like a bird headed for worms. The creatures' fishy guts could survive almost any fall, but their human passengers were rarely so lucky (Westerfield, 30-31).

Deryn is applying as a soldier for the army. Part of the prerequisites was “air sense”, the ability to travel in flight and know what to do if dire situations arise all the while keeping a cool and level head. For this test, candidates must fly using a Huxley, an airbeast that looks like a medusa with its tentacles.

I think personally having a Huxley as a pet would actually be enjoyable; I could use it to relieve my stress after a long day of work. That is of course barring the danger involved with flying a Huxley. Though a Huxley, design-wise, would not be very popular with the public. Like I mentioned before, we as a society unfortunately like cute and fluffy objects and animals. That’s why brands like Hello Kitty are so popular. A Huxley on the other hand has tentacles, is slimy, and is overall displeasing to the eye. Not to mention the fact that the Huxley has to put tentacles over the person in order to fly, which may also put some people off.

The passage about the Huxley seems to inspire both awe and fear into the audience. This is the first instance in the novel about a Darwinist creature; it’s interesting in that it’s a combination of jellyfish species and can fly, yet, it is also sort of frightening that it’s essentially a tentacle monster that can fly someone. The imagery, as well as the description of the Huxley work together to provide a sense of awe about this unique creature but also a sense of fear from the dangers of falling and the idea of being surrounded by slimy tentacles. The audience does get this sense of foreboding from the monster itself, but the uniqueness of the creature serves to instill more interest and awe than it is fear.

The idea of the fabrication of a Huxley seems to suggest that society today isn’t afraid to venture into new unknowns, even if that unknown is a tentacle monster. Even the Leviathan is proof of bold, large, and new innovations of today.