Comparing Salvador Dali's 'Tuna Fishing With The Walrus'

Tuna Fishing with the Walrus The surrealist movement began in the 1920s, and many of its artists continued to do work well into the sixties and seventies. The most famous of these surrealists was Salvador Dali. In 1967, Dali painted what was regarded as one of his last masterpieces entitled Tuna Fishing. In the same year, the song “I am the Walrus” was written by the Beatles as a response to a fan letter they recieved. At this time in American history there existed a considerable resentment towards those in governmental power. In fact, the song and painting were released mere months before the protests of 1968 began, and at the height of the Civil Rights movement. People across the United States protested the war, as well as the lack of basic
Communist regimes were seen as the enemy in western Europe and the United States. At the head of the Cold War was the Soviet Union against the United States. When one looks at history in terms of “I am the Walrus” the crazy lines seem to suggest unification in the first line, and then a separation in the second. It echoes the sentiment of the US and Soviet Union, who were at one point allies, and then became separate. In contrast, the Dali painting causes a difference made between those doing battle by making them different species, but he goes on to make a statement about equals due to the humans making equal battle with the fish. The last line of the first verse is “I’m crying”. The words “I’m crying” suggest a hopelessness. The singer, although he is separate from the action at this point, having distanced himself with the words “see how they run” is now
Lennon has gone full circle again, much like the first two lines, there is at first a unifier, the singer is the eggman, and “They” are also the eggman, but then the singer goes on to separate himself by saying “I am the Walrus”. The use of the word “eggman” is interesting, because can be seen as humpty dumpty. Humpty Dumpty, as the nursery rhyme says, fell from a wall and could not be put back together again, despite the attempts of the king. In this context, the singer is first a being that is easily broken, then he and the audience is easily broken, then only the