O'Connell: Edward Scissorhands

The hedges of Edward's castle

Edward Scissorhands has many elements in it that makes it similar to a fairy tale. For example, Edward lives in a castle on top of a giant hill that overlooks the town. This is similar to the fairy tale castles that reoccur in many tales, an example of this is the Disney castle. Edward is also not human, but a machine that was created by an ingenious inventor. He becomes the misunderstood monster that you see in so many stories whose only desire is to fit in. Edward’s deformity rouses people’s curiosity at first but this eventually leads to fear. Kim is also a link in the film to several fairytales; she is the beautiful girl that the monster longs for. Edwards’s condition startles Kim and makes her apprehensive at first but like so many other fables, she sees the good in him and eventually falls in love. Though their predicaments keep them apart, Edward experiences love with another person for the first time. Even though fairytales, especially Grimm’s fairytales, contain many violent elements that teach a moral; Edward is not a violent character. Sometimes he hurts people by accident, but he would never go out of his way to hurt someone intentionally. It is actually the people of the suburb that are much more sadistic than he is. They don’t even begin to try and understand him. At first they use him because they find out he is skilled in certain things, such as trimming hedges and giving haircuts, but ultimately none of them care about him. Edward physical appearance is simply too much for the townspeople to handle, making his quest for completion that much more difficult. Edward is almost immediately thrust into an environment by the Avon lady that is almost totally identical in every aspect. The houses are all the same other than the paint color and all the woman in the neighborhood are bored and petty housewives. Despite the bright and welcoming image that the town puts on, the townspeople are unkind and thrive off of gossip. An especially nasty character is Joyce, she is just as bored as all the other woman but also manages to be promiscuous at the same time. She tries to seduce Edward and when he rejects her she turns it around on him so that all the townspeople think he tried to rape her. This is just one unfortunate event out of many that lead to Edward’s exile from the town.