Lilly - The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy

 

Tim Burton is a person that no matter what always puts parts of him into whatever he works on. Some of the best examples are the short stories and poems he wrote and illustrated, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories. The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy has lots of biographical criticism in it, like abandonment, loss, and outsider ness. In this story a couple gets married and wish for a baby, they get one but not how the expected. Their son turns out to be part oyster, and they take him to the doctor complaining but the doctor tells them to consider them selves lucky because he treated someone with three ears and a beak. The parents’ marriage then falls apart and they blame their son for their problems. The ending of the story is that the father eats the son, to be good in bed, and tries for another child. Burton shows biographical criticism of abandonment in the part where oyster boy is left behind one day in the rain. Though I doubt that this actually happened to Burton, I’m sure he felt the same abandonment that oyster boy felt. The feeling of being forgotten or left behind has a lot of impact on a child. A big issue that is seen in almost all of Burton’s creations is being an outsider. Many things make oyster boy an outsider, obviously the main thing being half oyster. He doesn’t have any friends, his parents reject him, and he’s called "that thing that looks like a clam." The only one that seems okay with oyster boy is the doctor, he tells the parents to consider themselves lucky and to maybe get a home suitable for the boy, but in the end even the doctor plays a role in oyster boy’s death. Burton was an outcast as a child and was considered weird by everyone else. He felt as if his own parents didn’t even accept him, but Burton took all of it and emerged as the person he is today that is loved by many. There are also archetypes in this short story, the doctor is the quisling (traitor), and the father turns into the monster. Like I’ve said before the doctor is someone that’s supposed to help people and at first he does but then tells the father to eat his son wither the doctor meant that or not. The father was supposed to take care of the child but eats him to be better in bed.