One of my favorite texts that we have read this year has been Edward Gorey’s Amphigorey. Not only do I find it humorous in its critique on the British monarchy, I think that it does a good job depicting the idea of frivolity in society. From the works that we examined in class today, “The Bug Book” and “The Curious Sofa”, both stories handle murder, but murder occurs in the face of frivolity across different societies. “The Bug Book” shows a clan of bugs partying with one another and going on excursions together. When their outrageous fun is disturbed by an outsider, a large black bug, they kill him and continue on their way with partying. In “The Curious Sofa” the party is disrupted when Sir Egbert hides everyone in a sofa. In both circumstances, the halting of festivities is met with outrage, shock, and death. Could Gorey have been commenting on the times, making a commentary on how society deals with people trying to stop the fun momentum of the times?
2 thoughts on “Frivolity in Amphigorey”
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I think that Gorey might be trying to hint at certain ridiculous things happening without warning. It is as if, one day, things will transition from good to bad suddenly. His stories do carry this theme throughout a lot of them. It could also be Gorey’s way of having a little fun with the viewer in a sense, instantly throwing shocking things like death into fun stories to throw them off guard.
In addition to the lighthearted frivolity, I think there is also a lot of social commentary in the pointless frivolity that is apparent simply in the way Gorey writes and draws. It often takes a long time for nothing much to happen, as in The Unstrung Harp. The pages are full of characters frittering away time with meaningless and often obsessive pursuits, or they are engaged in circular actions that are either destructive or nonconstructive, and seldom leave them better off than before. Gorey was an eccentric personality, so perhaps some of his commentary is aimed at his own nonsensical peculiarities, but I think he is also taking aim at the social classes that have disposable time and income and yet find themselves in an endlessly repeating dull cycle of pointless frivolity.