The Scarecrows by Robert Westall

First published: 1981

Type of work: Psychological realism

Themes: Emotions, family, and the supernatural

Time of work: 1975

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: Gorseley, Cheshire, England

Principal Characters:

• Simon Wood, a neurotic thirteen-year-old obsessed with his dead father and possessive of his mother
• Deb Moreton, Simon’s mother, a pretty, red-headed general’s daughter from Britain’s upper crust
• Joe Moreton, Simon’s stepfather, a successful cartoonist and pacifist who has risen from poverty to wealth
• Jane Wood, Simon’s seven-year-old sister, who adores Joe, the only father she has ever known
• Tris Le Chard, Simon’s best friend from prep school, a cheerful, fun-loving cutup who makes people laugh
• Mr. Mercyful, the gardener, who tells stories about the past to Simon

The Story

The action in The Scarecrows roughly parallels the psychological growth of its protagonist, Simon. At prep school, thirteen-year-old Simon viciously attacks a bully who has made sexual innuendoes about his mother. Such murderous rages seem to be precipitated by devils that only Tris le Chard, Simon’s best friend, can dissipate. Simon broods about his father, a major killed in action eight years ago, and he cannot accept Joe Moreton, the popular cartoonist whom his mother marries. Joe is somewhat paunchy, drives a flashy car, and dresses casually but is kind, understanding, and affectionate.

Simon refuses to attend the wedding, and after school is out, he visits his father’s colonel instead of going home. This close family friend speaks well of Joe, but when Simon must join his obviously happy mother and sister, Jane, in Joe’s big, beautiful mill house, his wretchedness intensifies. He has an immediate confrontation with his mother after which he blindly runs out of the house and across a turnip field to an old abandoned water mill. Inside he finds hanging on pegs clothing for three people. He feels that he is an interloper until he tries on each item. Then, the room seems friendly, as if the owners of the clothing have accepted him.

From his room in the attic, through a hole in his closet floor that opens into the bedroom below, Simon hears his mother having sexual relations with Joe. He is infuriated and at the first opportunity arranges his father’s uniform on the chair by their bed and calls his mother a whore. That same night, he leaves the house and calls for his father to come help him, but three ghosts from the mill appear instead as scarecrows in the turnip field. They begin to advance, and a frightened Simon learns from Mr. Mercyful, the gardener, about the old miller who was murdered by his wife’s lover just before the mill was abandoned. This tragedy seems fated to be reenacted.

Tris arrives for a visit and suspects that the mill has historical value. His guess is correct. Soon, reporters swarm over the property and exhaust everyone except Jane, who loves media attention as much as she loves her new father, Joe. When the furor dies down, the family and Tris relax with a dramatic game one evening after supper. Joe, Deb, and Jane leave the room while Tris and Simon remain at the table.

Simon, in a rage because the rest of his family are having so much fun, pinches four pieces from his dinner roll, forms balls, and flattens them with his fist. Immediately, ghosts of the miller, his wife, and his murderer march forward and into the house. After Tris convinces him that those four bread balls have enabled the ghosts to destroy the whole family, Simon plunges through the window and races to the mill. He starts the waterwheel and runs it full speed until the whole mill disintegrates. Then, he demolishes the turnip field scarecrows one by one in the name of each member of his family, including Joe.

Context

The Scarecrows won British author, Robert Westall, his second Carnegie Medal and is considered to be his best work. Using the plot of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (pr. c. 1600-1601) and Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow (the darkness within us), the author has crafted a powerful novel about a disturbed teenager consumed by passion. The character, Simon, has been compared to the negative heroes of Thomas Hardy because of his emotional turmoil and moments of violence.

The book is an enigma. Is it realism or is it fantasy? Westall himself has said that he does not know if the scarecrows were in Simon’s mind or if they were outside forces. He does not want to know, but he believes that both good and evil exist in the same person and that young people should learn that evil actions have harmful results. Critics notice similarities between The Scarecrows and The Owl Service (1967) by Alan Garner.

Older Westall novels could be classified as naturalistic-comic or supernatural. His very first book, The Machine Gunners (1975), was awarded the Carnegie Medal. It and Fathom-Five (1975) are unvarnished World War II realism tempered with wit. The Wind Eye (1976), The Watch House (1977), Devil on the Road (1978) and his short-story collections are time-shift ghost stories. These early works have male characters who are macho, and all good females stay in the kitchen. The 1988 science fiction book, Urn Burial, was the first novel to abandon the sexual stereotypes of the past.

Westall is fascinated by time and by the complexities of human psychology. He finds that ghost stories and science fiction enable him to explore these dimensions. The Scarecrows belongs with his early works and is a somewhat sexist psychological ghost story. It is also disturbing and unforgettable.