Feltes- The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy

   The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy is a poem by Tim Burton that tells the story of a married couple who have an oyster for a child that they name Sam. When they have the child, they claim it can't be theirs, but the doctor convinces them to take it home anyway. One evening on a car ride through the rain, the wife ends up accusing her husband of blaming their son for his problems in bed. Eventually, the man eats his son to regain his sexual prowess, buries the remains of oyster boy in a grave on the beach that gets blown away by the tide and says they should pray for a girl next time. This poem speaks to me about Tim Burton’s abandonment issues more so than any other poem in this whole book. For one thing, Tim Burton’s parents were said to try to keep him in seclusion, like they weren't proud of him. Oyster boys parents were immediately disgusted with their son and only thought about themselves, which reflects on how Tim Burton views the parents in the world, namely as selfish and uncaring. Also in the poem, when Sam first sees other kids, they end up calling him a bivalve and running away. This is a type of biographical criticism and refers to Tim Burton’s childhood, where he was considered an outsider and had very few friends. In this poem, I believe the parents to be the Jungian Archetype barbarians, for the husband actually literally eats his son so that he can get his sexual mojo back, and Sam to be the Monster, even though he did nothing wrong, because he was born disfigured. 

   Tim Burton delves deep into the sexually based motives on the part of the parents, and this is an interesting take on how Burton must view the sexual relationships of adults. He discusses how the husband tried to use ointments and salves to no avail, and eventually resorted to eating his own flesh and blood so that he could re gain his sexual prowess. This speaks to Tim Burton's view of his own parents, because we must assume that they are at least part of whom he is talking about. He makes the adults seem like monsters, which is most likely because that’s how he sees his own parents. To be fair, his own parents did board up his windows and keep him in seclusion until he moved out of their house, so they could be considered bad parents, but I don't think they would ever go so far as to hurt anyone. Tim Burton ends The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy with the parents burying Sam in the sand, where the tide ends up breaking his grave and washing it out. This also demonizes the parents, who obviously could have cared less about Sam and were only ever worried about themselves. This relates to how Tim Burton must have viewed his parents as unreasonably selfish, and could be just generally critiquing all of the parents in the world as being too selfish.