Surrealism and The Grotesque

When Reality, Dreams, and Nightmares Drift Together

Joshua Mason Leslie

COM 122-15 Professor Perez, Essay 3 12.6.2011

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Salvador Dali [from the top]: The Persistence of Memory, Butterfly Windmills, Swans Reflecting Elephants Zdzislaw Beksi ski said, "It misses the point to ask me what my paintings mean. Simply, I do not know myself. Moreover, I am not at all interested in knowing."

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Joshua Mason Leslie COM 122-15 Prof. Perez, Essay 3 12.6.2011 Surrealism and The Grotesque: When Reality and Nightmares Converge A lifetime can be spent studying the intricacies relating Surrealism and The Grotesque; in fact many have done exactly that. Among these studious minds are those who take up pen and paper to express themselves such as King, O Connor, Poe, Oates, and Sontag. Accompanying them are the cultural instigators who drive media in various forms such as art and music with Salvador Dali, Zdzislaw Beksi ski, The Sex Pistols, and Joy Division being prolific examples of combining depictions of Surrealism and The Grotesque. Furthermore, within the aperture of big screen productions, there are movies such as Waking Life, directed by Richard Linklater [2001], and Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan [2010] that helps to define the gray cloud that forms when one s wakefulness and slumber unite. The mosaic that these converging minds form spins and blurs together, showing the true nature of what it means to be surreal and grotesque all at once. This combination of ideas depicts how Surrealism can be manifested through The Grotesque in many forms, enrapturing individuals in ways they would otherwise not find themselves held captive; in ways they may soon regret.

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To use one individual to surmise the entirety of a world would leave vast craters within the definition for the indelible fact that humans, similar at times, are still immensely unique and individualistic in their nature; to alleviate these gaping chasms, five authors are brought into the light to begin substantiating Surrealism within The Grotesque. Stephen King, being at the forefront of horror and aptly regarded as the top horror story writer, serves as a strong foundation for what is to come. With his essay Why We Crave Horror Movies , King tells of how we need to sedate the darker sides of the mind with a societally accepted buffet of gruel consisting of horror movies and jokes that may surprise a laugh or a grin out of us even as we recoil [para.11]. Such is the case in Flannery O Connor s short story Revelations when an obviously racist joke is made that still strikes up notes of regrettable laughter from the reader; Nooo, she said, they re going with never a smile. [p.201, para. 9]. All of this suggests that

there may be a need of exposures to torture, obscenities, and the like due to the strongly influenced nature of one s internal state; our emotions, and our fears form their own body, and we recognize that it demands its own exercise to maintain proper muscle tone. [King, para.9] Perpetuating throughout his thought process, King determinedly presses the point of how there is a vast range of emotions within everyone for the simple fact of being human, who shares what he calls a brotherhood of man and in turn an insanity of man [King, para.11] that needs reinforcement, positive or negative, through any means available. King furthermore mentions how this range of emotions, from blinding rage to eternal love and everything in between, needs to be kept in check through methods of use; in the case of one s darker desires this is expressed through horror movies while the lighter side comes to fruition by means of kind words, and actions. Although Edgar Allen Poe s story, The Tell-Tale Heart , is not a movie,

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it still satisfies King s bigger picture of keeping one s emotions fine-tuned; this is observed from both what the individual experiences through reading the story as well as from the character within the story. These two separate events not only feed one s gators, due to the graphic and serial killer-esqu manner in which the old man s murder is plotted and eventually carried out, I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. [para.12], but inevitably the character, and in turn the reader, is lead to a madness by their subconscious. This madness is due to the actions that have unfolded; though the madness of the reader is far less than that of a murderer, for it is that of a third-party witness, thusly allowing the individual to carry on about their day with clean hands and only slightly troubled minds. Joyce Carol Oates and her cryptically lacking depiction of Bibi, from her short story Poor Bibi, expands more on King s argument but instead turns the view inwards, from those in the real world to the characters within her story. Oates also says in her short essay, Reflections on The Grotesque , Here we have the plentitude of the imagination itself. [para.3] which directly correlates to her story for how the reader is left to imagine Bibi in the most cynically demeaning ways possible; within the extents of their own imagination. This specter, manifested by the shadows of one s thoughts, further reveals the intricacies that compose the human mind and that which gives way to gators as unique as the people they belong to. Whether these gators need mass hysteria, bloodshed, or intricately imagined creatures that may stroll into nightmares later on, it is certain that there is no shortage of sustenance from external sources and from within one s own waking life to satiate them; Sontag marks these encounters one may experience more specifically with references to photography, advertisement, and other media in her work Regarding the Suffering of Others .

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Certain photographs emblems of suffering

can be used like memento mori, as

objects of contemplation to deepen one s sense of reality. [p.119, para. 1]. This statement by Sontag parts the veil on living nightmares even more so which causes a tangible visualization of that which another has either witnessed, or thought of within their mind. Remember your mortality is a short and quick Latin phrase, within the aforementioned quote, that Sontag uses to help bring into the bigger picture how images of outright pain and malice can be used to solidify, and develop the overall grip on reality an individual has. Such images, for example those by Salvador Dali and Zdzislaw Beksi ski, create a much more vivid and easily conveyed sense of that which we truly fear; they can even shake loose the foundations of what is understood and held true, simply within just a second of one s gaze falling upon the scene. Sontag would argue though that this is not the case, but rather an individual can find strength within such depictions, encouraging growth within their perception of reality, if able to find the equivalent of a sacred or meditative space in which to look at them. [p.119, para. 1] Some notable works of Dali and Beksi ski, found above, demonstrate how two different minds may find themselves within the same relativistic existence, but don t necessarily convey this shared reality in the same manner as one another. While Dali presents his visions through paintings easily defined as surreal and quirky, Beksi ski takes a different angle of approach to this quirky Surrealism by revealing what the shadows flowing from his mind solidify into when given a medium to express themselves. The paintings of both artists can be interpreted in many ways, one of which is the convolution of the individual s internal struggle with the perception of the surrounding environment along with their internal environment, which is delved into upon the lapse from consciousness into the dreamer s own world. Andr Breton mentions in the

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Surrealist Manifesto that, The mind which plunges into Surrealism relives with glowing excitement the best part of its childhood. [2nd] which could very well hold true when viewing the paintings of the two artists, but not necessarily that these memories are in fact happy or the best ones. While Dali s works convey a peculiar, yet light hearted, sense of wonderment that leave many a head chaffed from repeated scratching and beards stroked ad naseum, it is Beksi ski s works that conveys an almost overwhelming sense progressively moving from dread, to anguish, and finally hopelessness. This may be the cause of a tormented childhood instead of a fanciful one such as the guess would be made of Dali; this leaves the viewer of Beksi ski s art in any state from active forgetfulness to being completely fearful of the world and reality as a whole. Art is only half of the picture though for evolution, or some other means, has granted life with the ability to perceive sound along with the articulation of language in an incredibly vast range of forms. At the heart of the punk movement, The Sex Pistols found themselves a home within their strong lyrics and wild attitude about anything and everything concerning the world they lived in. A year after The Sex Pistols came into existence, Joy Division breathed its first breath and eventually found its way into the post-punk movement due to the road map laid out by The Sex Pistols. Both of these bands, through their lyrics and attitudes among other traits, contribute strongly to Surrealism and The Grotesque due to their radical perception of the world. Their Surrealism is a product of the music produced by them being completely out of the blue, relative to the music of the time, while The Grotesque nature being that in which they carried out their lyrical madness through concerts, for example, where gobbing was common. On top of the music these bands produced, a notable cover art of Joy Division s album Closer is

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that of the Appiani family tomb in Genoa, Italy depicting a group grieving over those who have passed away. This use of such a photograph for their album art further shows the grotesque nature of the band in the sense that they use artwork of marble effigies in mourning to convey their initial message of the punk and post-punk movements before anyone has the chance to listen to the music contained within. When the works of the artists prior, with their musical style which is equal parts Surrealism and The Grotesque, become stitched into moving images the movie is born in its most basic form. Movies such as Waking Life and Inception are the culmination of modern technology, thinking, Surrealism, and The Grotesque in varying levels. It is through these movies that true wonderment occurs about the world and, in the briefly approximate two hours of their showing, is the attempt to try and understand what is not only being displayed but also the attempt of the viewer to understand that which is inside their own mind. Within Waking Life, the protagonist finds himself nearly constantly within a dream world; a waking life. This surreal head trip brings into question everything that one takes for granted; including but nowhere near limited to the ground beneath their feet. One of the most associated scenes is that of the protagonist slowly floating away into the sky after vainly attempting to hold onto a nearby car. Inception furthers this concept of otherwise complete uncertainty, for the truly roundabout manner in which the plot unfolds within both films; while Waking Life has a story to tell, Inception s is much more obviously plot driven. The complexity of awareness within Inception progressively increases not only with each passing second, but whenever the characters delve into another s mind through the use of the machine in the movie. The grotesque is conveyed within its own manner, and relatively to the amount of Surrealism depicted, due to the

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complete madness that has to be present for such stories to be told and even more so for being understood even remotely during the first telling of these stories. While not necessarily using direct influences from the punk movement, but perhaps more from artists such as Dali and Beksi ski, these films lend themselves greatly to that which is the offspring of Surrealism and The Grotesque. Through the widely gathered thoughts of various authors, artists, musicians, and films, Surrealism and The Grotesque are found to intertwine, bind, twist, and reshape themselves into a new entity that which only the phrase a waking nightmare can barely begin to describe. It is certainly no longer a question of the results that these sources produce individually, but rather the resultant affects they have on anything within the realm of being effected by them. Having only skimmed the surface of the human mind with all of its potential, and glimpsing at the incredible distance left ahead humanity as a whole, there stands no truly simple solution to the question of the curiously delusional, and at times terrifying, occurrences in life that undoubtedly will be experienced repetitiously and much sooner rather than later.

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Works Cited
Literature: Breton Breton, Andre. Surrealist Manifesto. 1924. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. <http://wikilivres.info/wiki/Surrealist_Manifesto>. King King, Stephen. Why We Crave Horror Movies. Hack 'n Slash Monthly. 6 Sept. 2009. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. <http://hacknslashmonthly.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-we-crave-horror-movies.html>. Sontag Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 126. J. C. Oates: Oates, Joyce Carol. "Poor Bibi." Haunted: Tales of The Grotesque. New York: Dutton, 1994. Print Oates, Joyce Carol. "Reflections on The Grotesque" Haunted: Tales of The Grotesque. New York: Dutton, 1994. Print O Connor O'Connor, Flannery. "Revelation." Everything That Rises Must Converge. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965. Print. Poe Poe, Edgar A. The Tell-Tale Heart. 1850. PoeStories.com. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. <http://poestories.com/read/telltaleheart>.

Media: Sex Pistols "Sex Pistols". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Retrieved 19 May 2010. Sheldon, Camilla; Skinner, Tony (2006). Popular Music Theory: Grade 4. Registry Publications Ltd. pp. 29 30. Joy Division http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_division http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closer_%28Joy_Division_album%29 Dali Top Left Picture: http://unpeudekilshi.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/the_persistence_of_memory_1931_salvador_dali.png Top Right Picture: http://www.antiquity.tv/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/dali-art-salvador-dali.jpg Middle Left Picture: http://onlyfunnyjokes.com/bestoftheweb/wp-uploads/surreal-art-05.jpg Beksi ski Bottom Left picture: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2397/2130276666_673db5bab0_o.jpg Bottom Middle picture: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/U_KbzUqAgJk/TnQG_8IzGYI/AAAAAAAAB50/C3W4tfTCNZQ/s1600/tumblr_lh70fa8Rd31qdepdno1_400.jpg Bottom Right Picture: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vXdI_D6SKbw/TRwX_fWR9gI/AAAAAAAABbA/X7B0IMZlNeo/s1600/zbeksinski.jpg Quote from art page: http://morpheusgallery.com/Zdzislaw%20Beksinski/biography.php