Tim Burton’s: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy … and Roald Dahl too.

The Boy with Nails in his Eyes
put up his aluminium tree.
It looked pretty strange
because he couldn’t really see.

Tim Burton’s: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy is one of my most favourite books: it is sufficiently warped to appease my twisted sense of humour, it combines poetry with fairytale, the social comment is poignant, the art is beautifully quirky, the emotion is intense and Burton’s imagination is as transcendent as always. I love an artist who is prepared to take a risk.

The seemingly random nature of Burton’s collection of tales reminds me of Roald Dahl’s eccentric imagination, which has birthed some of the world’s greatest fiction. I mean snozzcumbers and frobscottle, giant peaches, great glass elevators, magic fingers … ? Yet within Dahl and Burton’s apparent randomness, there lies a steadfast sense of purpose and a subtle sensitivity, often overlooked by readers. Burton easily identifies with the outcast child – the loner who just does not fit in to society’s perceptions of normality – a feeling that has the tendency to parasitically attach itself to the human psyche and tag along with it into old age. Burton’s short stories are macabre exaggerations of that which makes human beings feel ‘other’ – his characters are literal manifestations of abstract concepts. Burton’s tale The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy is reminiscent of Dahl’s attitude towards children and how they can be damaged by a corrupt society, which is personified in Dahl’s fiction by debauched adult characters. Burton’s tale draws on the myth of Greek god Cronus, who consumed his own children, one of whom was fated to overthrow him, in order to prevent the usurpation of his position. Oyster boy meets his demise – is eaten by his father, in a bid to fulfil a self-gratifying fantasy. As with Cronus, Oyster Boy’s father acts according to the instinct of self-preservation: this is often the motivation that consciously or unconsciously provokes hurtful behaviour. This darkly funny tale comments on the destructive nature of one’s own desires. The act of cannibalism in Burton’s story is deeply metaphoric as the author uses the figure of speech as a tool to expose the mercenary nature of society: how human beings impose themselves (through opinions, sensibilities, expectations, assumptions, actions, demands … the list is endless) on one another and in so doing obliterate character; obliterate joy; and obliterate innocence.

Dahl (as Burton) empathises with the outcast. Rather than allowing characters to escape their ‘otherness’, Dahl provides tools that an outcast can use to overcome society’s stifling constraints. That which is ‘other’ should be preserved and treasured as it will aid in conquering the fearsomely wicked adults and contexts that threaten destruction. Dahl suggests that good manners, morality, imagination and a sense of humour will go a long way when challenging life’s monsters. Amidst the dark tragedy that encompasses many of life’s crueller moments, reflected in the fiction of Burton and Dahl, both authors reserve the right to laugh. Burton and Dahl share a sadistically perverse sense of humour. The punishments meted out on the horrid children in Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the cruel physical deformations inflicting the characters in Tim Burton’s: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy perfectly illustrate the preceding point. Burton and Dahl observe that life is unbearable if taken too seriously – imagination and humour are the greatest tools for living, not merely existing, in an undeniably cruel world.

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