Williams- Robot Boy

"Robot Boy" perfectly describes Tim Burton's neuroses about abandonment, loss, and outsiderness. Robot Boy was never loved by his parents, he was abandoned young, and he is outsider towards everyone else to the point that people think he is a trash can. This kind of describes how Tim Burton felt about his childhood. He felt that he was the black sheep of the family. He was alone until he was sent to live with his grandmother. I think the way Burton depicts the family shows how he holds the opinion that children ruin families. They are the reasons families break apart and secrets are revealed. The readers feel pity and sympathy for Robot Boy. Even though he is not a normal child, the reader sees that he is a victim of the parent’s corruptness. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a cliché normal family, are happy that they are having a baby. However, Burton corrupts the experience. Burton turns what should have been a happy normal birth and transforms it into an appalling experience.  Not only is the baby a robot, he is also a bastard child. Although his mother is human, his father is a blender. He causes distress in the happy family, and the Smith’s hate each other. His parents are disgusted with their child. Even though he looks strange and odd, he still needs love just like any other child.

Robot Boy also fits the collective unconscious that Jung ideology promotes is the part of the unconscious that all human participate in and belief that the self, or conscious psyche, seeking individuation, or wholeness. He believed that there were “archetypes of transformation” on the path towards wholeness. The reader sees this when it states that Robot Boy is in between life and death but he still ages into a grown man. However, even though the world treats him as a garbage can, life goes on. In addition, the Smith’s fit the evil stepmother archetype. They project the neglect and loss of a true mother in the child. Robot boy was nurtured as a child just like Tim Burton.