Since 1984, many authors have studied the dynamics of maps of the form
$\mathcal{E}_a(z) = e^z - a$
, with
$a > 1$
. It is now well-known that the Julia set of such a map has an intricate topological structure known as a Cantor bouquet, and much is known about the dynamical properties of these functions.
It is rather surprising that many of the interesting dynamical properties of the maps
$\mathcal{E}_a$
actually arise from their elementary function theoretic structure, rather than as a result of analyticity. We show this by studying a large class of continuous
$\mathbb{R}^2$
maps, which, in general, are not even quasiregular, but are somehow analogous to
$\mathcal{E}_a$
. We define analogues of the Fatou and the Julia set and we prove that this class has very similar dynamical properties to those of
$\mathcal{E}_a$
, including the Cantor bouquet structure, which is closely related to several topological properties of the endpoints of the Julia set.