Surrealism and The Grotesque

When Reality, Dreams, and Nightmares Drift Together

Joshua Mason Leslie

COM 122-15Professor Perez, Essay 312.6.2011

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Salvador Dali [from the top]:The Persistence of Memory, Butterfly Windmills, Swans Reflecting Elephants

Zdzislaw Beksiński 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 Beksiński, 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-esqué 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 Beksiński, 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 Beksiński, 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, Beksiński 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. André 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

Beksiński’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

Beksiński’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

Beksiński, 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

Beksiński

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