David Lynch’s Eraserhead Explained!

nCHAPTER I: HENRY WORRIES ABOUT BEING A FATHER

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nFrom its very first frames, Eraserhead challenges you toninterpret what you are seeing and you definitely get the idea that you’re innfor a surreal film. During the whole film, we constantly revisit what’s goingnon inside the head of Henry Spencer, the films main character, which is why thenfilm starts out by showing us one of Henry’s many dreams. In this first dream,nwe see Henry’s head, floating through space. Now apparently, what Henry isnhaving is a nightmare involving something that looks like a giant sperm comingnout of his mouth, floating through space. This is not the only reference tonsperm that we see in the film by the way; which kind of lets us know what thenfilm is really about! So anyhow, this evil looking man called “The Man in thenPlanet” pulls a lever, and out comes the sperm from Henry’s mouth, flying throughnspace. The Man in the Planet could represent many things, but since the filmnaddresses sexual themes, I’m gonna go down as saying that this Man in thenPlanet could possibly represent Henry’s sexual desires? At any rate, thisnominous character represents something that controls Henry, and what’s morencontrolling than our sexual desires? Do they not sometimes control us like anpuppeteer pulling strings? So anyhow, as the giant sperm floats through space,nit ends up on a planet, as it keeps going down; the sperm thing goes into andark crevasse. Now it doesn’t take much to figure out that a sperm going into ancrevasse would represent impregnation? Taking in consideration that this filmnis all about the horrors of unwanted pregnancy, well, if you put one and twontogether you’ll understand that what we are seeing here is Henry Spencernimpregnating his girlfriend, Mary X. But this is all happening in Henry’s mind,nso what we’re really seeing here is Henry having a nightmare about the possibilitynof having gotten his girlfriend pregnant.
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nCHAPTER II: HENRY’S HUMBLE AND DEPRESSING LIFE

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nFast forward to Henry coming home from work walking throughnan industrial wasteland; this is where we learn just what a decidedly bleaknlandscape Lynch wants to paint with this film. Henry not only leads andepressing lonely life, he lives in a depressing looking city, made this way bynindustrialization. This is a city without trees, without beautiful lookingnanythings, this city that Henry lives in and walks through every day from andnto his job is one industrial nightmare. It seems post apocalyptic, abandoned, annutterly sad place to live in. The apartment building in which Henry lives in isnequally depressing. Henry is portrayed as the quintessential, low income bluencollar worker who can only afford to live in these sad circumstances, with onlynthe bare necessities, in an apartment filled with dirt and dying vegetation.nHere is where we find out that this is definitely a man who does not have thenmeans to bring a child into this world and care for it properly. He can barelyntake care of himself.

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nCHAPTER III: THE WORST DINNER EVER

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nNext, Henry gets a message from his sexy, provocateurnneighbor that he has received a phone call from Mary X, inviting him over forndinner so he could meet her parents, a notion that completely horrifies Henry.nHe doesn’t seem to be in love with Mary at all and Mary doesn’t seem to be headnover heels for Henry either, but something is bringing them together tonight,nwhat could it be? This is where the main theme of the film is revealed. Theirnunwanted pregnancy and all the awkward, uncomfortable and downright horrifyingnsituations it will create. Henry has to face the possibilities of having tonmarry Mary, a girl which he obviously doesn’t love. And that’s the worst partnabout it, by the way they behave around each other, it’s quite obvious thatnHenry and Mary had a one night stand type of deal and that no love wasninvolved. But here’s Henry, months after having had intercourse with Mary,nfacing the realities of being a father. Mary asks Henry “You wouldn’t mindnmarrying me would you Henry?” to which he nervously answers “Well….no.”

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nOnward we go to meeting Mary’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. X, andnboy is this encounter one of the most awkward situations every filmed. First,nHenry meets Mary’s mother and of course she begins everything by asking Henrynwhat he does for a living, because all she cares about is how Henry is going tontake care of her daughter. Everyone in this room seems to be uncomfortablenaround one another, everything we see, a dark omen of the negative energiesnfloating around that living room! At one point Henry looks at the floor andnsees a dog, feeding her puppies, all of them sucking on her mother’s breastsnlike mad little doggies. Henry looks at this image and it horrifies him becausenit obviously reminds him of the responsibilities that await him as a father; it’snhere that he realizes that from here on in, a child will depend on him for all of itsnneeds! The energies on this room are so negative that the lamps on the roomnbegin to flicker on and off until the light bulb explodes! Next we meet Mary’snfather, a man who is not all that different from Henry, a blue collar worker asnwell, who has been apparently driven insane by 30 years of hard labor. Same as innmany films, the father character is represented as being aloof, apparently notnat all there, not even aware that his daughter has given birth to a baby! Henjust casually converses with Henry about the weird little chickens they arenabout to eat, which by the way are simply there to make matters even morenuncomfortable. How uncomfortable? Well, as Henry begins to cut up the “man madenchickens” that the family is going to have for dinner, they begin to bleed profusely!nAs you can see, nothing in this moment is right, everything is some sort ofnnegative bad omen, it’s as if Henry was not meant to be here at all. In fact,nhe wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t gotten Mary pregnant. Here Lynch is accentuatingnthe uncomfortable situations brought on by an unwanted pregnancy, it seems thatnnow Henry is going to become a part of this weird ass family unit? All throughout,nHenry’s face is telling us he is cursing himself for not having used a condom.

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nCHAPTER IV: HENRY LEARNS HE IS A FATHER

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nNext, Mary’s mom takes Henry aside and asks him if he hadnintercourse with Mary because there’s a baby in the hospital and he is thenfather! Henry is so nervous he doesn’t know how to answer the question, butnunder pressure, he tells Mrs. X that he ‘loves’ Mary! The mother keepsnpressuring him, asking about the intercourse, all while viciously lickingnHenry’s neck! Henry calls out to Mary who walks in on Mrs. X salivating overnHenry, Mary is horrified. So this is how Henry learns that he is the father ofna baby…weird part is that Mary tells Henry that the doctors don’t even know ifnthe baby is really a baby or not! Apparently, Henry and Mary’s baby is not yournnormal every day baby! The doctors don’t even know what it is! So anyhow, fastnforward a couple of days and we see Mary moving in with Henry. Sure, all he’sngot is this little apartment, but he is a father now and he has to man up andndeal with this new situation in his life! It’s his baby after all; right?

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nCHAPTER V: MEET THE BABY!

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nSo from this moment in the picture, we meet Henry and Mary’snbaby. And let me tell ya, it’s not a pretty sight! The baby looks like somensort of mutant, half formed and incomplete and to top things off, sick. Herenthe film really starts to test your boundaries. Can you take it? Why is thisnbaby so ugly, so monstrous? I believe that the idea behind making the baby innthe film so ugly and downright disgusting is to accentuate the idea that thisnbaby was not planned, it is unwanted. The fact that he is sick, always hungrynand crying is meant to remind the viewer of the things that a baby can bringninto your life. Now I personally think that under the right circumstances, anchild is a reason for happiness and joy in your life, but I also understand hownhaving one when you are not ready can become a burden, and not only that, itncan and probably make your life miserable. Let’s say you’re young and are innthat part of your life where you just want to party and have fun, well, that’snall over because now you have a baby to take care of and feed and nurture. Youngotta worry about earning enough money to give the child everything it needs.nOnce a baby is born, you sacrifice a lot of yourself in order to take care ofnthat child and if you are not ready for that in your life, you will more thannlikely be miserable. In Eraserhead, the child never stops crying, never stopsnbeing hungry; it is a constant nag in Henry’s life.

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nCHAPTER VI: MARRIAGE IS AS UNWANTED AS THE BABY

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nAnd how about those people that get married because theynsuddenly face the prospect of having a child? You’ve seen it happen a thousandntimes. Two kids have unprotected sex, choose not to abort the baby and so theynfigure they have to get married. If two people get a surprise pregnancy andnthey love each other, cool beans, get married! Have a family! Be happy! But whatnof those that have an unwanted pregnancy and don’t feel they love each other?nWhat if all you had was a one night stand? What if you were simply havingncasual sex? Do you have to marry that person? Should the child be aborted? Donyou want to be entangled with a person you barely know? It seems to me that ifnyou marry a person this way, you are forcing things, doing something thatndoesn’t come out of you naturally. Chances are that this type of marriage willnnot end up well, and so, this is what happens to Henry. Henry and Mary arentrying to force something that’s not cemented on love. Should they have abortednthe baby? Would they have been happier? Henry and Mary’s marriage is portrayednas a very uncomfortable thing. Henry isn’t even comfortable with Mary sleepingnnext to him! She fidgets and moves around and doesn’t let him sleep. To makenmatters worse, the baby never stops crying! After a while Mary herself can’tntake it anymore and moves out, running, like a crying baby to her parentsnhouse. This lets us see that even Mary herself, the mother of the child, was notnready to be a mother. She’d rather crawl back to the safety of her parents’nhouse, which she does. She leaves Henry alone with the monstrous baby!

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nCHAPTER VII: A TRIP INTO HENRY’S SUBCONSCIOUS

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nHow do we know that Henry is not ready to be a father? Well,naside from the fact that he is obviously distraught by the constant crying ofnthe baby and the fact that the baby is sick and bursting with these ugly wartsnall over its body, he also starts dreaming about all the things that are goingnthrough his mind. First up, he dreams about his next door neighbor, thenprovocative lady who is constantly flirting with him. And this is where we oncenagain, dive deep into the mind of Henry Spencer through one of his dreams. Innhis mind Henry has sex with the next door neighbor in a pool of milk! Hencompletely submerges himself in it, letting us see that he wishes he could benfulfilling his sexual desires with women instead of being with Mary X andntaking care of a crying baby. Again, Henry wasn’t ready to be tied down bynmarriage. Even further than that, Henry ends up dreaming with this womannsinging on a stage, as she sings, little spermatozoa falls from above, barelynmissing her. She then proceeds to step on the sperm, alluding possibly to thenfact that the mother of the child possibly didn’t want to be a mother either.

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nStill, this is not the end of Henry’s nightmares, as we gondeeper in his mind we see his dream extend and in it he ends up in some sort ofnjudicial court room with the baby as part of the jury! The baby judges Henrynand decides it’s off with his head! So Henry’s head pops off and falls to thenfloor!  This of course all means that ifnHenry’s child was to judge him for how he is performing in his role as anfather, Henry would be found wanting and guilty as charged!  So these dreams within dreams that Henry hasnall have to do with his preoccupations about being a father, that’s understood.nIt is quite obvious Henry would rather forget the whole thing; he wishes hencould erase the whole thing from his mind, which makes perfect sense when wensee what follows. At this point in the dream, Henry’s head is found by a childnwho takes the head to a pencil factory. In the pencil factory, a worker takes anpart of Henry’s brain and turns it into the eraser of a pencil. He then testsnthe eraser and blows on the residue left by it, as the residue of the erasernblows in the wind, we see the image of Henry’s head superimposed over it. ThenMeaning behind it all is that Henry wants this whole mess with the deformednbaby out of his mind! Erased, forgotten. Unfortunately, the reality is anothernone. The baby is still in his apartment!

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nCHAPTER VIII: FILICIDE – MURDERING YOUR OWN CHILD

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