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| Anchor Baby |
Anchor Baby is a story that contains several aspects of Tim
Burton’s emotional isolation and loneliness. The female character of this story
is an outsider in many senses. Firstly, she is physically isolated from rest of
the characters of the story (the band), as she comes from the sea while the
band plays ashore. She also can never really get close to the band, but instead
just wanders around them. Secondly, she is not only physically but also
emotionally detached from rest of the characters in the story. In the book, it
clearly says “But throughout their lives they never connected. She wandered the
earth alone and rejected.” Tim Burton states her emotional detachment from
other characters in plain language. Her loneliness probably is a reflection of
Tim Burton’s alienated and lonely childhood, as Burton has also never felt
connected with his parents or the suburbia that he grew up in. The female
character desperately tries to fit in and tries to find a place to belong in
the little “society” in the story, but none of them worked, and at last, she
chose to have a baby just to be connected to her lover, Walker. Such
extremeness of her actions only enhances the idea of abandonment and desperate
attempt to fit in, as they clearly shows the audience that she is willing to do
anything to find a sense of belonging. However, she later realizes that she is
truly abandoned when Walker literally walks away from her, and her love remains
unrequited. This story is almost shockingly dark, and bends the traditional
Jungian archetypes. There are no heroes, kings, devils or barbarians, but only
shadows of the characters. The shadows in this story are portrayed both
directly and indirectly. The female character’s loneliness and abandonment is
her shadow, and the man’s irresponsible act of leaving his child and the
child’s mom behind is his shadow. The baby is also representative of the shadow
of both the male and female characters, as neither the mom nor the dad loves
and cares for him.
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