Now I'm not going to pretend that this is going to be a very well thought out analysis of the film Eraserhead, as I have only just finished watching it for the second time, and I'm still shuffling some ideas around in my hopefully not eraser worthy brain.
I'll try to be coherent: The true story of this movie is not of a couple living in a post-apocalyptic world, with a mutant baby, as I have seen it described, but the internal decay of the main character Henry. From the beginning through to the very end, the surreal imagery is all relative to Henry's mental condition. Now it doesn't have to get this specific, but you can rationalize it down to the fact that Henry has a mental tumour or growth that is causing his grip on reality to fracture and decay and is slowly killing him.
Everywhere Henry goes, we see destruction. It's in all things, -the barren dug up earthen fields he walks, the house with a hole in the roof and cracked windows in which sits the charred man pulling the levers, to his apartment which gives new meaning to the decorative term "earthy". Lynch uses the mounds of earth as a symbol for decay, much the way Dali does with ants in his paintings and short film "Un Chien Andalou". A recurring image of Henry's interior decay is light bulbs dimming or burning out altogether when he's around...and we take this as a figurative illustration of the sort of erratic synaptic firings that are happening inside the ol' Eraserhead.
Now there may or may not be a Mary X and a Family X, it could all be part of Henry's dissilusions, but their roles are less important than that of the "baby"...the fact that the "Doctors aren't even sure if it is a baby" about sums it up. Lynch couldn't have made it more ambiguous...it's not a proper baby, it's not a mutant...it's a growth. It's a manifestation of Henry's tumour or whatever disease it is that is eating him from the inside. Once Henry is "left alone" (it's all relative to who actually exists or not) with it, it suddenly starts decaying hideously. Henry's condition worsens. The only redemption he can find from his terrifying insanity is in a vision of a lady in his radiator inviting him to heaven through the radiator bars as if they were the pearly gates themself, telling him that there everything is fine. The woman herself is deformed as well, as Henry's projection of his sickness pervades everything around him. Yet the woman is his redemptor as she crushes the little wormly fetuses, helping soothe the spread of the tumour within. Henry's tumour manifests itself in a couple of other ways as well, one is the man in the house with the hole in the roof. The house is a cage, it's his skull, and it's got a severe deformity if it has a hole in the top, letting out all sanity. The man is charred, burned and twitchy, he's in decay, yet he's the one pulling the levers for Henry's brain. His tumour is a malignant, destructive thing, yet it is what is in control. It is what releases the worm like babies....it's sending itself elsewhere to create further decay. Henry's apartment is like himself...it's in decay, and the piles of earth do more than just remind of us that in a passive way...Henry's pet worm that he finds in his mail box tunnels through the earth gorging itself on it. That is what worms do, they eat their way through earth, and as a metaphor they are a physical representation of the destructive force of Henry's tumour, which is eating itself through his brain. Now I wish I could watch the movie again before I wrap this up, but I'll do my best with what my memory gives me. A couple of tangents...Henry fantasizes about his beautiful next door neighbour, but as she enters his world, he doesn't want her to see his growth...ie the baby, he doesn't want her to recognize his problem, but as they make love she can't help but notice, while all the while being sucked down into the void of Henry's psyche. The next thing that happens is that Henry's brain is being probed and drilled into, again highlighting the sensations and pains Henry must be receiving from this malignant growth. The next time Henry sees his neighbour, (in reality), he imagines she looks at him and sees only his decay, ie the head of the baby. This is when we come to the final destruction, the final decay, the final seizure or anneurysm.... The baby, the growth is only very precariously being held together by its bandages...as Henry's sanity is also dangling very precariously. Henry decides to stop fighting, and let the baby, let his sickness loose, to grow and overtake him, which it does, the insides of the baby swell and overflow and the baby's head increases in size 10 times, and the rest of the apartment self destructs, the power outlets spark, the lights go into epileptic fit, and the sound effects, which I have failed to mention but play an important psychological role all through, come to an excruciating head. Henry is left facing what it was we saw in the opening scene...what looked like a planet but what is actually his tumour, exploding towards him, and then it's all over and he's in the arms of the Lady from the Radiator, holding her, letting go of the pain and the trouble, and ready for his good thing. It's a very obtuse film, but very sad and beautiful and troubling all at once. It'll never leave you. -Ed
I'll try to be coherent: The true story of this movie is not of a couple living in a post-apocalyptic world, with a mutant baby, as I have seen it described, but the internal decay of the main character Henry. From the beginning through to the very end, the surreal imagery is all relative to Henry's mental condition. Now it doesn't have to get this specific, but you can rationalize it down to the fact that Henry has a mental tumour or growth that is causing his grip on reality to fracture and decay and is slowly killing him.
Everywhere Henry goes, we see destruction. It's in all things, -the barren dug up earthen fields he walks, the house with a hole in the roof and cracked windows in which sits the charred man pulling the levers, to his apartment which gives new meaning to the decorative term "earthy". Lynch uses the mounds of earth as a symbol for decay, much the way Dali does with ants in his paintings and short film "Un Chien Andalou". A recurring image of Henry's interior decay is light bulbs dimming or burning out altogether when he's around...and we take this as a figurative illustration of the sort of erratic synaptic firings that are happening inside the ol' Eraserhead.
Now there may or may not be a Mary X and a Family X, it could all be part of Henry's dissilusions, but their roles are less important than that of the "baby"...the fact that the "Doctors aren't even sure if it is a baby" about sums it up. Lynch couldn't have made it more ambiguous...it's not a proper baby, it's not a mutant...it's a growth. It's a manifestation of Henry's tumour or whatever disease it is that is eating him from the inside. Once Henry is "left alone" (it's all relative to who actually exists or not) with it, it suddenly starts decaying hideously. Henry's condition worsens. The only redemption he can find from his terrifying insanity is in a vision of a lady in his radiator inviting him to heaven through the radiator bars as if they were the pearly gates themself, telling him that there everything is fine. The woman herself is deformed as well, as Henry's projection of his sickness pervades everything around him. Yet the woman is his redemptor as she crushes the little wormly fetuses, helping soothe the spread of the tumour within. Henry's tumour manifests itself in a couple of other ways as well, one is the man in the house with the hole in the roof. The house is a cage, it's his skull, and it's got a severe deformity if it has a hole in the top, letting out all sanity. The man is charred, burned and twitchy, he's in decay, yet he's the one pulling the levers for Henry's brain. His tumour is a malignant, destructive thing, yet it is what is in control. It is what releases the worm like babies....it's sending itself elsewhere to create further decay. Henry's apartment is like himself...it's in decay, and the piles of earth do more than just remind of us that in a passive way...Henry's pet worm that he finds in his mail box tunnels through the earth gorging itself on it. That is what worms do, they eat their way through earth, and as a metaphor they are a physical representation of the destructive force of Henry's tumour, which is eating itself through his brain. Now I wish I could watch the movie again before I wrap this up, but I'll do my best with what my memory gives me. A couple of tangents...Henry fantasizes about his beautiful next door neighbour, but as she enters his world, he doesn't want her to see his growth...ie the baby, he doesn't want her to recognize his problem, but as they make love she can't help but notice, while all the while being sucked down into the void of Henry's psyche. The next thing that happens is that Henry's brain is being probed and drilled into, again highlighting the sensations and pains Henry must be receiving from this malignant growth. The next time Henry sees his neighbour, (in reality), he imagines she looks at him and sees only his decay, ie the head of the baby. This is when we come to the final destruction, the final decay, the final seizure or anneurysm.... The baby, the growth is only very precariously being held together by its bandages...as Henry's sanity is also dangling very precariously. Henry decides to stop fighting, and let the baby, let his sickness loose, to grow and overtake him, which it does, the insides of the baby swell and overflow and the baby's head increases in size 10 times, and the rest of the apartment self destructs, the power outlets spark, the lights go into epileptic fit, and the sound effects, which I have failed to mention but play an important psychological role all through, come to an excruciating head. Henry is left facing what it was we saw in the opening scene...what looked like a planet but what is actually his tumour, exploding towards him, and then it's all over and he's in the arms of the Lady from the Radiator, holding her, letting go of the pain and the trouble, and ready for his good thing. It's a very obtuse film, but very sad and beautiful and troubling all at once. It'll never leave you. -Ed