Edward Scissorhands free essay sample

As this is seen in Edward, the creation of a skilled inventor, intertextuality is evident. There is a resemblance to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as human beings cannot recreate life to substitute the factor of God and expect it to thrive. Since Edward is an unfinished creation, he is considered an outlier in the normal society. Burton shows this archetype of inconformity through the juxtaposition of good versus evil, technical tactics of mise-en-scene, and the violations of the dark romanticism conventions to introduce the moral of appearance versus reality. Edward is a very humble and polite human being yet he is detached from the real world. As a result of being concealed in his gothic mansion for so long, he yearns for acceptance in the quaint suburban town. As Peg, an Avon sales woman is going door to door trying to sell her cosmetics, she is shut down by everyone in the neighborhood. When Avon-lady, Peg, comes to knock on the door of the castle, the viewer first finds some beautiful, yet unusual, bush trimmings. One trimmed bush the camera focuses on for a moment is a giant life-like hand that is in the very middle of the garden. But as Peg continues to let her self into the castle, the viewer sees an old grand stairwell that is covered in dust. The windows are so dirty with dust and grime, they let in no light making the once, seemingly beautiful entrance, dark and eerie. The roof of the castle has a giant hole in it, there is a fireplace with some hay around it and several magazine clippings taped to the wall above it. The people of suburbia have stayed away from this castle for years and Peg now understands why. Edward’s gothic castle is completely backwards from the rest of suburbia. Suburbia is a lively, colorful town where the same thing happens every day. This town is painted with bright colors. Each house is shaped exactly the same with the only differences between each one is the garish color of the exterior walls which vary from green to pink to blue. In the mornings, the men who go to work are all shown leaving at the exact same time, and all pulling out of their driveways in a uniformed fashion. This quaint, little town is practically the American dream to most who see it from the outside. Inside each home everything is nice and neat, everything is cleaned, and all the children seem to be perfect little angels. Suburbia and Edward’s castle are from two totally different worlds, which provides a sort of comic relief for the viewers. When Edward is brought into town for the first time, it doesn’t take long for everyone to know. The people of suburbia live in such a perfect world, they almost desire a bit of a change in scenery. There are several kinds of people living in this neighborhood and each character has their own personality. Peg, a married woman with two children who also works for Avon, is a little woman with a big heart. When Peg first meets Edward, she tries to help him by bringing him to live with her family and uses her new Avon products to lessen the severity of the scars on his face. She dresses conservatively by wearing classic pencil skirts with matching coats, hats and pumps. Her friend Joyce, who lives just down the street, is somewhat of a cougar. She is always wearing high heels with a bright colored shirt or dress with a belt to define her skinny waist and bigger bum. She is equipped with long 3-inch plastic nails that are delicately painted that add more to her cougar-like character. Joyce is a very nosey neighbor with false intentions. She tries to lure Edward into having sex with her mostly because he is something new to look at. Joyce also was one of the first in the neighborhood to try to get Edward involved but when things go bad, she states â€Å"all along I felt in my gut there was something wrong with him. † Edward’s character looks to be very dry and bland. He wears an outfit of all black and skin as pale as snow. Though his costume is bland, his personality is not. Edward only knows what others tell him, kind of like the mind of a child. Since he believes whatever anyone tells him, his character is very sweet and innocent. Edward’s hands are made of long sharp knives that he ends up using for others benefits. He trims the hedges, cuts hair, and cuts the dogs’ hair, all because someone told him to. Edward dreams of being a ‘normal’ human with real hands like what his creator had planned for him to have before he unexpectedly died. In his castle, he used the fireplace as his bed. Above the fireplace, the pictures taped to the wall were pictures of modern homes and happy families, things he truly desires. Edward also desires love. He falls in love for the first time when he gets to know Kim, the daughter of Peg. The elements of mise en scene in this film are highly directed at teenagers. This film, made in the 1990s, shows the typical rebellion of the children in a perfect neighborhood. Edward Scissorhands captures the feelings teenagers feel when peer-pressure is put upon them and the feeling of falling in love for the first time. Kim’s boyfriend, Jim, owns a van that the teenagers use to do things teenagers ought not do. Teenagers feel the peer pressure to smoke, drink and lie to their parents nowadays just like they did in the 1990s. Edward meets Kim and eventually begins to feel those butterflies in his stomach when she’s around and Kim tries to deny any feelings towards Edward. He does his best to impress her and even goes to the extent of breaking into Jim’s parent’s house because Jim told Edward it would make Kim happy. Once, Edward tries to touch Kim but accidentally cuts her. At that moment, he realizes he will never fit in to this ‘cookie-cutter’ world of suburbia. Edward is eventually run back into his castle by the police and townspeople and is never seen again. Though Edward was never fully human, he had the opportunity to live in a human world just to find he did not fit in. Each character in this film has their own opinion of Edward but poor Edward doesn’t know enough to have is own opinion about everyone else. The film also shows how today’s teenagers have not changed much since the 1990s. Teenagers still deal with peer-pressure and falling in love for the first time. Edward Scissorhands shows how even though not everyone can live the American dream, we must learn to love what world we do live in just like the people of suburbia and Edward in his castle.