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| "He just lay there and stared, not living or dead." |
Out of
all the poems in the The Meloncholy
Deaths of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, one that really stood out to me
was “Robot Boy.” This is one of the longer ones in Burton’s book of poems and
it probably relates to Burton’s life the most. Robot Boy is an obvious symbol
of Burton’s childhood because he is an outcast from society who no one
understands, not even his parents. Like Robot boy’s parents, Burton’s parents
never connected with him as he did not fit in the world of suburbia. Burton
felt that it stifled his creativity, making him feel like an outsider. In “Robot
Boy,” Mr. and Mrs. Smith are described as a happy couple before the birth of
their son, their lives now are even described as being filled with “misery and
strife.” This relates to Burton because he felt that his parents were much
happier before he was born. It eventually lead him to live with his grandmother, this
is probably why he describes Robot boy as being “mistaken for a trash can,”
because he felt like he had been thrown away by his parents.
When it
comes to Carl Jung, his theories about looking for wholeness perfectly match the lives of
Mr. and Mrs. Smith, they used child birth to continue their journey for completion. When their child
does not live up to their expectations, they become miserable. Their bundle of
joy ended up being a cold, metallic trash can. This poses the question of
whether parents can love their children unconditionally even if they are born
with some kind of deformity. In a way, Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the monsters,
instead of taking responsibility for the wife’s wrongdoing and care for their child;
they blame him for their unhappiness. Robot Boy still fulfills Jung’s theory of
individuation. He is barely mobile at the beginning of the story but is
eventually described as growing into a young man. This is Robot boy’s “movement
of the Self towards wholeness.” Despite the fact that he is “mistaken for a
trashcan,” he goes on to live his life.
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