The Plucker

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The Plucker is a 160 page novel both written and illustrated by Brom . It is comprised of three parts to the story and over 100 illustrations in full color. All this spans throughout 22 chapters. This story takes place in the shadowy land of make-believe, where Jack and his box are stuck beneath the bed with the other castaway toys. When Plucker, a malevolent spirit, is set loose upon the world of make-believe, Jack is thrust into the unlikely role of defending Thomas, the very child who abandoned him.

[edit] Major themes

In The Plucker there are a multitude of recurring themes found such as, pain, rejection, fear, loneliness, and many others.

Loneliness

In the Plucker, even from the very beginning the reader can see that Jack [the main character] feels isolated, abandoned, and completely and utterly alone with only his box to ease his lonesome soul. And in many instances the reader would think that his loneliness has finally come to an end when that glittering hope is snatched away and torn to shreds.
Angel, though surrounded by other adoring toys, and the most prominent toy of all "The Red Knight", she feels distant and shut out from the rest because of the knights domineering and degrading attitude towards her, treating like nothing more than a trophy. Early in the story Angel and Jack become secret friends and talk and laugh with one another until all hours of the night, until their time is cut short by the Red Knight's control issues.

Fear

In the story many times the toys have strong urges to rise up, to strike back at the oppressing beasts of the spirit realm, but are too paralyzed by their own fear to do anything about it.

Filth/Dirty/Untouchable

There's quite a macabre sense of filth and decay that pours into the world of these happy little toys. And all throughout the story there are unimaginable beasts of a disgusting nature. There's also a great deal of disgust from inside coming mainly from Jack. The self loathing and lack of self confidence makes him second guess and blame himself for things he had no control of. The separation, and more importantly, the segragation of toys seems to hold a very "caste system" kind of feeling. You have the Red Knight and Angel who associate with no one, the rest of the toys who socialize with each other, the underbed toys who talk mainly to no one but themselves, and then the attic toys who, for all intents and purposes, are dead.

Pain Pain is the basic premise on which this entire tale rests upon. The amount of atrocious nerve wracking pain unleashed in this baroque story. In his adventures through the book Jack is filled with immense emotional pain through the loss of his beloved Angel and also his life long companion the Box. Angel is filled with pain as she watches other toys get dismembered and have their souls sucked out of them through their eyes. Even the Plucker felt the pain of being isolated from existence in his African homeland.