Introduction
“Isn’t what matters that we be the masters of ourselves, the masters of women, and of love too?” Andre Breton’s words written into the Surrealist Manifesto itself set the stage for a movement which allows artists to freely embrace their sexuality and eroticism, while at the same time bridging the gap between reality and the dreamscape. These men’s “surreality” does not come without its drawbacks though, as it seems to have destructive, violent, and disturbing views of the opposite sex, leading to the historical categorization that the Surrealists and their movement were misogynistic in nature. A symbol which the surrealists deemed adequate for the representation of the negative female archetype so commonly used was the symbol of …show more content…
He recalls that although he has fond memories of them in early childhood, he came to associate the grasshopper for his father, who Dali describes as “a strict and old-fashioned”. (Pressly) Dali’s father also expressed the desire that he did not want his son to become an artist, only drawing further dislike from young Dali. He also identifies his mother with the symbol, saying that her death was the “hardest blow” he ever endured (Pressly). This is interesting seeing as though at this point in his life the grasshopper was not a symbol for hate, for he often expressed that he loved his mother deeply, but rather he likely felt betrayed by his mother in leaving him with his father and associated the grasshopper with the memory, not his mother herself (Pressly). Another appearance of the symbol in his childhood was a time he recalls that “[his] girl cousin purposefully crushed a large grasshopper on [his] neck” (Pressly). Describing the insect that was crushed “still stirring” against his skin with terms suggesting sexual aggression from the insect that was “half-destroyed”, “clutching” with its “jagged legs” with such “death-grip” (Pressly). Portrait of Paul Eluard is a work that contains the imagery of the crushed locust, as well as another one with the male subject’s finger jammed inside of its orifice, suggesting male violation