Eraserhead is one of David Lynch’s most recognized films; it was also his first, which by the way took about six years to make while Lynch studied at the American Film Institute. Now for those of you who don’t know a blip about David Lynch’s films, they often times defy interpretation, they’ll make you wonder just what the hell the filmmaker is trying to say with them. Sometimes a David Lynch film will be so surreal that you’ll want to see it again instantly! Or not. You see, Lynch is a very polarizing director, you either fall in love with his style of filmmaking or you don’t. I personally love Lynch’s films because of how challenging they are. I like films that defy me to interpret them, I love films loaded with symbolisms and Lynch’s films are like that. Eraserhead for example is one of those films that everyone always tries to figure out after seeing. Ask anyone about any David Lynch film and they’ll give you their own interpretation of it because his films work that way, they could mean anything to anyone. So here I offer you guys my interpretation of Lynch’s Eraserhead! Cause the way I see it, it’s not as much of a mind twist as most make it out to be! This article is goes into detail about specific moments in the film and its themes so if you haven’t seen the film, skip it and come back after you’ve seen it.
CHAPTER I: HENRY WORRIES ABOUT BEING A FATHER
From its very first frames, Eraserhead challenges you to
interpret what you are seeing and you definitely get the idea that you’re in
for a surreal film. During the whole film, we constantly revisit what’s going
on inside the head of Henry Spencer, the films main character, which is why the
film starts out by showing us one of Henry’s many dreams. In this first dream,
we see Henry’s head, floating through space. Now apparently, what Henry is
having is a nightmare involving something that looks like a giant sperm coming
out of his mouth, floating through space. This is not the only reference to
sperm that we see in the film by the way; which kind of lets us know what the
film is really about! So anyhow, this evil looking man called “The Man in the
Planet” pulls a lever, and out comes the sperm from Henry’s mouth, flying through
space. The Man in the Planet could represent many things, but since the film
addresses sexual themes, I’m gonna go down as saying that this Man in the
Planet could possibly represent Henry’s sexual desires? At any rate, this
ominous character represents something that controls Henry, and what’s more
controlling than our sexual desires? Do they not sometimes control us like a
puppeteer pulling strings? So anyhow, as the giant sperm floats through space,
it ends up on a planet, as it keeps going down; the sperm thing goes into a
dark crevasse. Now it doesn’t take much to figure out that a sperm going into a
crevasse would represent impregnation? Taking in consideration that this film
is all about the horrors of unwanted pregnancy, well, if you put one and two
together you’ll understand that what we are seeing here is Henry Spencer
impregnating his girlfriend, Mary X. But this is all happening in Henry’s mind,
so what we’re really seeing here is Henry having a nightmare about the possibility
of having gotten his girlfriend pregnant.
CHAPTER II: HENRY’S HUMBLE AND DEPRESSING LIFE
Fast forward to Henry coming home from work walking through
an industrial wasteland; this is where we learn just what a decidedly bleak
landscape Lynch wants to paint with this film. Henry not only leads a
depressing lonely life, he lives in a depressing looking city, made this way by
industrialization. This is a city without trees, without beautiful looking
anythings, this city that Henry lives in and walks through every day from and
to his job is one industrial nightmare. It seems post apocalyptic, abandoned, an
utterly sad place to live in. The apartment building in which Henry lives in is
equally depressing. Henry is portrayed as the quintessential, low income blue
collar worker who can only afford to live in these sad circumstances, with only
the bare necessities, in an apartment filled with dirt and dying vegetation.
Here is where we find out that this is definitely a man who does not have the
means to bring a child into this world and care for it properly. He can barely
take care of himself.
CHAPTER III: THE WORST DINNER EVER
Next, Henry gets a message from his sexy, provocateur
neighbor that he has received a phone call from Mary X, inviting him over for
dinner so he could meet her parents, a notion that completely horrifies Henry.
He doesn’t seem to be in love with Mary at all and Mary doesn’t seem to be head
over heels for Henry either, but something is bringing them together tonight,
what could it be? This is where the main theme of the film is revealed. Their
unwanted pregnancy and all the awkward, uncomfortable and downright horrifying
situations it will create. Henry has to face the possibilities of having to
marry Mary, a girl which he obviously doesn’t love. And that’s the worst part
about it, by the way they behave around each other, it’s quite obvious that
Henry and Mary had a one night stand type of deal and that no love was
involved. But here’s Henry, months after having had intercourse with Mary,
facing the realities of being a father. Mary asks Henry “You wouldn’t mind
marrying me would you Henry?” to which he nervously answers “Well….no.”
"Just cut em up like regular chickens"
Onward we go to meeting Mary’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. X, and
boy is this encounter one of the most awkward situations every filmed. First,
Henry meets Mary’s mother and of course she begins everything by asking Henry
what he does for a living, because all she cares about is how Henry is going to
take care of her daughter. Everyone in this room seems to be uncomfortable
around one another, everything we see, a dark omen of the negative energies
floating around that living room! At one point Henry looks at the floor and
sees a dog, feeding her puppies, all of them sucking on her mother’s breasts
like mad little doggies. Henry looks at this image and it horrifies him because
it obviously reminds him of the responsibilities that await him as a father; it’s
here that he realizes that from here on in, a child will depend on him for all of its
needs! The energies on this room are so negative that the lamps on the room
begin to flicker on and off until the light bulb explodes! Next we meet Mary’s
father, a man who is not all that different from Henry, a blue collar worker as
well, who has been apparently driven insane by 30 years of hard labor. Same as in
many films, the father character is represented as being aloof, apparently not
at all there, not even aware that his daughter has given birth to a baby! He
just casually converses with Henry about the weird little chickens they are
about to eat, which by the way are simply there to make matters even more
uncomfortable. How uncomfortable? Well, as Henry begins to cut up the “man made
chickens” that the family is going to have for dinner, they begin to bleed profusely!
As you can see, nothing in this moment is right, everything is some sort of
negative bad omen, it’s as if Henry was not meant to be here at all. In fact,
he wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t gotten Mary pregnant. Here Lynch is accentuating
the uncomfortable situations brought on by an unwanted pregnancy, it seems that
now Henry is going to become a part of this weird ass family unit? All throughout,
Henry’s face is telling us he is cursing himself for not having used a condom.
CHAPTER IV: HENRY LEARNS HE IS A FATHER
Next, Mary’s mom takes Henry aside and asks him if he had
intercourse with Mary because there’s a baby in the hospital and he is the
father! Henry is so nervous he doesn’t know how to answer the question, but
under pressure, he tells Mrs. X that he ‘loves’ Mary! The mother keeps
pressuring him, asking about the intercourse, all while viciously licking
Henry’s neck! Henry calls out to Mary who walks in on Mrs. X salivating over
Henry, Mary is horrified. So this is how Henry learns that he is the father of
a baby…weird part is that Mary tells Henry that the doctors don’t even know if
the baby is really a baby or not! Apparently, Henry and Mary’s baby is not your
normal every day baby! The doctors don’t even know what it is! So anyhow, fast
forward a couple of days and we see Mary moving in with Henry. Sure, all he’s
got is this little apartment, but he is a father now and he has to man up and
deal with this new situation in his life! It’s his baby after all; right?
CHAPTER V: MEET THE BABY!
So from this moment in the picture, we meet Henry and Mary’s
baby. And let me tell ya, it’s not a pretty sight! The baby looks like some
sort of mutant, half formed and incomplete and to top things off, sick. Here
the film really starts to test your boundaries. Can you take it? Why is this
baby so ugly, so monstrous? I believe that the idea behind making the baby in
the film so ugly and downright disgusting is to accentuate the idea that this
baby was not planned, it is unwanted. The fact that he is sick, always hungry
and crying is meant to remind the viewer of the things that a baby can bring
into your life. Now I personally think that under the right circumstances, a
child is a reason for happiness and joy in your life, but I also understand how
having one when you are not ready can become a burden, and not only that, it
can and probably make your life miserable. Let’s say you’re young and are in
that part of your life where you just want to party and have fun, well, that’s
all over because now you have a baby to take care of and feed and nurture. You
gotta worry about earning enough money to give the child everything it needs.
Once a baby is born, you sacrifice a lot of yourself in order to take care of
that child and if you are not ready for that in your life, you will more than
likely be miserable. In Eraserhead, the child never stops crying, never stops
being hungry; it is a constant nag in Henry’s life.
CHAPTER VI: MARRIAGE IS AS UNWANTED AS THE BABY
And how about those people that get married because they
suddenly face the prospect of having a child? You’ve seen it happen a thousand
times. Two kids have unprotected sex, choose not to abort the baby and so they
figure they have to get married. If two people get a surprise pregnancy and
they love each other, cool beans, get married! Have a family! Be happy! But what
of those that have an unwanted pregnancy and don’t feel they love each other?
What if all you had was a one night stand? What if you were simply having
casual sex? Do you have to marry that person? Should the child be aborted? Do
you want to be entangled with a person you barely know? It seems to me that if
you marry a person this way, you are forcing things, doing something that
doesn’t come out of you naturally. Chances are that this type of marriage will
not end up well, and so, this is what happens to Henry. Henry and Mary are
trying to force something that’s not cemented on love. Should they have aborted
the baby? Would they have been happier? Henry and Mary’s marriage is portrayed
as a very uncomfortable thing. Henry isn’t even comfortable with Mary sleeping
next to him! She fidgets and moves around and doesn’t let him sleep. To make
matters worse, the baby never stops crying! After a while Mary herself can’t
take it anymore and moves out, running, like a crying baby to her parents
house. This lets us see that even Mary herself, the mother of the child, was not
ready to be a mother. She’d rather crawl back to the safety of her parents’
house, which she does. She leaves Henry alone with the monstrous baby!
CHAPTER VII: A TRIP INTO HENRY’S SUBCONSCIOUS
How do we know that Henry is not ready to be a father? Well,
aside from the fact that he is obviously distraught by the constant crying of
the baby and the fact that the baby is sick and bursting with these ugly warts
all over its body, he also starts dreaming about all the things that are going
through his mind. First up, he dreams about his next door neighbor, the
provocative lady who is constantly flirting with him. And this is where we once
again, dive deep into the mind of Henry Spencer through one of his dreams. In
his mind Henry has sex with the next door neighbor in a pool of milk! He
completely submerges himself in it, letting us see that he wishes he could be
fulfilling his sexual desires with women instead of being with Mary X and
taking care of a crying baby. Again, Henry wasn’t ready to be tied down by
marriage. Even further than that, Henry ends up dreaming with this woman
singing on a stage, as she sings, little spermatozoa falls from above, barely
missing her. She then proceeds to step on the sperm, alluding possibly to the
fact that the mother of the child possibly didn’t want to be a mother either.
Still, this is not the end of Henry’s nightmares, as we go
deeper in his mind we see his dream extend and in it he ends up in some sort of
judicial court room with the baby as part of the jury! The baby judges Henry
and decides it’s off with his head! So Henry’s head pops off and falls to the
floor! This of course all means that if
Henry’s child was to judge him for how he is performing in his role as a
father, Henry would be found wanting and guilty as charged! So these dreams within dreams that Henry has
all have to do with his preoccupations about being a father, that’s understood.
It is quite obvious Henry would rather forget the whole thing; he wishes he
could erase the whole thing from his mind, which makes perfect sense when we
see what follows. At this point in the dream, Henry’s head is found by a child
who takes the head to a pencil factory. In the pencil factory, a worker takes a
part of Henry’s brain and turns it into the eraser of a pencil. He then tests
the eraser and blows on the residue left by it, as the residue of the eraser
blows in the wind, we see the image of Henry’s head superimposed over it. The
Meaning behind it all is that Henry wants this whole mess with the deformed
baby out of his mind! Erased, forgotten. Unfortunately, the reality is another
one. The baby is still in his apartment!
CHAPTER VIII: FILICIDE – MURDERING YOUR OWN CHILD
David Lynch and Jack Nance, fooling around on the set of Eraserhead