Behemoth - The "Behemoth"

“Deryn saw now what the walker’s trunk was for. As the machine lumbered through the crowd, its trunk swept gracefully from side to side, nudging pedestrians out of the way. The howdah pilot’s fingers moved nimbly on the controls; he pushed carts aside, and even rescued a child’s fallen toy from being crushed by the walker’s giant feet” (109).


In this scene, onboard the “Behemoth”, or otherwise known as the elephantine walker viewed earlier in the novel, Deryn witnesses the walker in action and how it functions using its different body parts. The Behemoth uses its trunk primarily to sweep people away lightly and to avoid crushing people and objects with its giant feet.

Once again, having a “Behemoth” in real life would be pretty amazing; I wouldn’t mind taking a “Behemoth” to school for a ride. Granted, the traffic may be horrible if everyone decides to take a Behemoth, but regardless, who wouldn’t want a giant mechanical elephant that you can control and move about? Walking and driving would become a thing of the past with Behemoths, and unlike in video games, these Behemoths aren’t vicious creatures with sharp claws, but rather elephants that people can ride on.

All joking aside, once again, Westerfield is building up the idea that Darwinist creations are majestic in nature with this passage. The Behemoth, despite its name and negative connotation of it being a mindless beast and creature, is actually an elephant whose trunk is described as a way to gently brush people and objects aside to keep them from being crushed. It’s definitely powerful, that’s no doubt, but the way Westerfield describes the motion of the trunk pushing people aside gives it the impression that it is a gentle giant. It’s powerful, but it has a sense of delicacy unseen in savage beasts and creatures, or even the Behemoth by its normal definitions in today’s society. Rescuing a child’s toy also tugs at the heartstrings as well; it’s an appeal to the emotional side of the readers to get them to support the Behemoth and feel at ease with its majestic presence and the idea that both Darwinist and Clanker ideas can come together and that each creation doesn’t have to be about war but rather be about efficiency.

The Behemoth and the functions of its trunk to sweep people away definitely shows that today’s society has an emphasis on convenience like in the last post, but rather than using animals, society is just making pleasing to the eye creations that are convenient to us, like the iPhone. With society focusing so much on convenience and energy conservation, the creation of the Behemoth in reality could very well happen with potential hydraulic power and of course, time.