Tim Burton's Gothic Imagination

screeching crows, the sound of a storm and dramatic music, a hand emerging from a grave, a
woman in billowing, translucent white and a cemetery. However, once Edward is in the world
of the dead, the conventional imagery associated with death gives way to a crazy colourful
place filled with music and entertainment. This world is placed in direct contrast with the
monochromatic, oppressive and constricted world of the living. In his depiction of the world
of the dead in Corpse Bride, Burton revisits and refines many of the ideas he explored in
Beetlejuice.
…I always responded to characters and monsters, and cultures like Mexico and its Day
of the Dead, because I always felt there was more life there…I came from a sort of
puritanical suburban existence where death was looked upon as dark and negative.
But it happens to everybody, and I always responded to cultures that made death feel
more a part of life.—Tim Burton 46
The strikingly eccentric figures who inhabit the welcoming and party-loving world of the
dead have a delightful capacity to improvise, as they cheerfully ‘make do’ with their
remaining body parts in order to enjoy themselves. As the skeletal Bonejangles makes clear
in the song he sings about the Corpse Bride’s murder, it is only in life that you meet with
such cold-hearted cruelty. Moreover, no matter how much you might try to fight against it,
there is only one thing in life everyone can be sure of: we are all going to die.
You might try and hide
And you might try and pray
But we all end up
The remains of the day.
FREE FOR EDUCATION Education Resources Tim Burton’s Gothic Imagination 30