Contents
Analysis
Some Comparative Analysis of
the Legend of the Starfish Flinger
The story of the Starfish Flinger occurs in a variety of shapes and forms, from straight unadorned prose to rich flowery language, to terse rhyming verse, from simple straightforward tales of hope and promise to the more Sisyphean tale of immediate futility. Interestingly, most of these versions are called something simple like "Making a Difference" or " Why we do what we do", or some variation thereof, but some of the accounts struggle under the weight of titles like " An Allegorical Tale demonstrating the value of helping others".
Some details of the story vary widely from one version to the next, while certain specifics are almost universally consistent.
Points of Similarity
- The Location - While all stories share the common setting of "a beach",
the beach the story takes place on is usually not identified specifically.
Several stories do refer to either a Spanish beach and both stories which
attribute the tale to Loren Eisley refer to a "beach on the southern coast
of Spain", the specific beach itself is not mentioned by name in any of
the accounts.
Time of day - Another common setting of the story is the time of day in which the events transpire. The time of day is without exception described as "dawn", "early morning", "morning" or "before sunrise".
The number of starfish observed - The number of starfish observed is invariably described as "millions" or "as far as the eye can see".
The size of the beach - The beach/shoreline is described as thousands of miles long. (Ed. While this is technically true, after extensive field research we feel that this is most likely somewhat of an exagerration.)
- The walker/observer - The walker/observer is variously described as
- a man
an old/elderly man
a well-known-author and poet(this being another detail unique to the two "Eisley" versions).
a young man.
.
- a young man (by far the most common)
a small boy
a couple versions try to smash through the gender barrier by describing the elusive and mysterious figure of the flinger as a young woman
One daring version describes the flinger as a female child
One account(the infamous Chronos-Inverte version) describes the flinger as an old fisherman. This assignation of age to the flinger is unique to the genre, for without exception ALL of the other renditions describe the flinger as young (at least younger than the walker/observer).
- Flinger demeanor - in many of the stories when the flinger is first
seen from a distance s/he is thought to be dancing or performing some kind
of ritual.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at starfishman@oocities.com
This page last updated on February 1, 1999.