Lautreamonts Sewing Machine and Umbrella Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Lautreamonts Sewing Machine and Umbrella - Essay Example Descriptions of Lautreamont’s work echo the same type of influences identified in Dali’s work nearly a century after Lautreamont’s death. Working with literature rather than paint, Lautreamont painted pictures in the mind of his readers that were vividly graphic and altogether disturbing in their character. â€Å"One of the earliest and most astonishing examples of surrealist writing, Lautreamont’s fantasy unveils a world – half vision, half-nightmare – of angels and gravediggers, hermaphrodites and pederasts, lunatics and strange children. The writing is drenched with an unrestrained savagery and menace, and the grandiose by turns – possesses a remarkable hallucinatory quality† (Siquiera, n.d.). Lautreamont’s effectiveness is translated particularly in his ability to accurately present a vivid description of an everyday object or creature with such attention to detail and such precise selection of language that his image s leap off the pages to become real before the eyes of the reader, such as in his various uses of animals to more fully represent his intentions. â€Å"These creatures are presented with the sharp eye of the biologist. By likening humanity to animals, Lautreamont achieves a double effect: man comes off as debased and at the same time, elevated: to be like an animal man must be rid of all his pretensions and vanities. It is this pretense to culture and civilized behavior that sicken Lautreamont/Maldoror†.