Anne Nies

Professor Foeller-Pituch

English 368-CN

10 June 2011

The Surreal in The Street of Crocodiles

In The Street of Crocodiles Schulz uses the surreal to create a vivid and magical portrayal

of his childhood. The way in which Schulz builds a surreal scene is subtle and eloquent, while

his use of surrealist imagery and themes is by contrast blatant and obvious. The chapters seem

float like a balloon in the wind between dreaming and waking, keeping the narrative from

touching the banal while all of the time it is immersed in it. Schulz reveals the glory and wonder

of the universe while simultaneously acknowledging the mundane. Although the father figure is

used to reveal esoteric knowledge of alchemy, magic, and the Demiurge; in the end his

accomplishments are recognized as failures and reality reverts back to it’s normal state. Thus

upon completion of The Street of Crocodiles the reader is left to determine if what they have read

is simply a flight of fancy or if perhaps it is a peek, from under one small corner of the screen, at

the true nature of things.

The major concepts and themes of surrealism are all used in Schulz’s work: the apartment

and the city are labyrinths that take the reader on fantastic disorienting journeys, there is “a

screen ironically placed to hide the true meaning of things,” fire and violence are sprinkled

across the narrative, the exotic and the magical manifest themselves through the father’s antics,

and others are subtly sprinkled throughout the narrative (Schulz 103). It is quite remarkable that

Schulz has smoothly worked them into his writing so effectively. In doing so he forces even the

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greatest skeptic to agree that his work is surrealist in nature, he guarantees that the un-educated

reader has a thorough introduction to surrealism, and he provides the student of surrealism with a

feast.

Schulz creates the surreal in scenes, objects, and occurrences through using words that,

while providing great detail, are both unique and unusual for what they are describing. Often this

leads to a clear image that begins as normal and quickly morphs into the exceptional. A great

example of this is in the chapter “Tailors’ Dummies”: “We were beset again from all sides by the

mournful grayness of the city which crept through the windows with the dark rash of dawn, with

the mushroom growth of dusk, developing into the shaggy fur of long winter nights.” (Schulz

52). Often dawn is described as creeping, and it is easy to think of a mournful grey city,

especially after reading Dickens. Thus Schulz begins to build his reader into a standard scene,

but then he describes the creeping dawn as a “dark rash” which is in direct conflict to the

standard idea of dawn bringing light and banishing the dark. At this point in the sentence

movement towards the surreal has begun. The narrative then gently departs from reality with

“the mushroom growth of dusk,” where the idea of grey and brown mushrooms lend color to the

scene then morph it so that suddenly the dusk itself becomes a field of sprouting mushrooms

swallowing up the city and the room. The final part of the sentence then gently lowers the reader

towards the normal again with “the shaggy fur of long winter nights” conjuring images of wolfs

in the snow and fur coats. Thus without being overtly unreal, Schulz turns the simple change of

day to night and fall to winter into a work of surrealism in only one sentence.

This powerful type of description touches on one of the ideas of Aragon: “The essence of

things is in no way linked to their reality, there are relationships other than reality that the mind

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may grasp and that come first too, such as chance, illusion, the fantastic, the dream. These

various species are reunited and reconciled in a genus, which is surreality.” (Montagu 12)

Schulz’s juxtaposition of concepts: “dark rash of dawn,” “mushrooms and dusk,” and “shaggy

fur and long winter nights;” uses this idea in a way that is aesthetically pleasing as well as

efficient.

Another way in which Schulz introduces the surreal into a scene is through revealing

what is expected to be something unfamiliar. For example, the cousin Emil is described as little

more than a misty smudge:

It seemed as if it were only his clothes that had been thrown, crumpled and empty,

over a chair. His face seemed like the breath of a face - a smudge which an

unknown passer-by had left in the air. In his white, blue-enameled hands he was

holding a wallet and looking at something in it. From the mist of his face, the

protruding white of a pale eye emerged with difficulty, enticing me with a wink.

(Schulz 34)

Another striking example is reminiscent of Bordando el manto terrestre: “the piece of material

under the needle of the sewing machine had long since slipped to the floor, and the machine ran

empty, stitching only the black, starless cloth unwinding from the bale of winter darkness outside

the window” (Schulz 60). We would expect for the machine to not run at all without a girl at the

pedal let alone for it to be able to pull the intangible “winter darkness” under it’s needle. A final

example is the carriages without coachmen in “Cinnamon Shops” and “The Street of

Crocodiles.” The strange and vivid scenes portrayed by the sudden and unexpected diversions

from normalcy allow a dull visit to be filled with wonder.

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The most predominant surrealist theme that Schulz uses is the idea of alchemy, the

transmutation of matter through scientific and philosophical endeavors. The father is an

alchemist, by the surrealist definition, and his ubiquitous role brings forth many of the

transmutations within the novel that make it into a work of surrealist genius. The father acts as

an alchemist through science and through spirituality, by performing experiments, magic tricks,

and sermons. His constant scientific experimentation introduces questions of existence, life, and

science melded together. This experimentation begins as a result of the Demiurge, who the

father has a complicated relationship with and is first introduced while the father is on the

chamber pot, “the terrible Demiurge, as, resting on darkness as on Sinai, propping his powerful

palms on the pelmet of the curtains, pressed his enormous face against the upper panes of the

window which flattened horribly his large fleshy nose” (Schulz 41) sending the father into

prophetic tirades. The father’s tirades reveal that:

We have lived for too long under the terror of the matchless perfection of the

Demiurge. For too long the perfection of his creation has paralyzed our own

creative instinct. We don’t wish to compete with him. We have no ambition to

emulate him. We wish to be creators in our own, lower sphere; we want to have

the privilege of creation, we want creative delights, we want - in one word -

Demiurgy. (Schulz 60-61)

This idea leads the father to begin a series of scientific experiments the first of which is

the introduction of the generatio aequivoca:

He had dreamed up, a species of beings only half organic, a kind of pseudofauna

and pseudoflora, the result of a fantastic fermentation of matter.

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They were creations resembling, in appearance only, living creatures such as

crustaceans, vertebrates, cephalopods. In reality the appearance was misleading -

they were amorphous creatures, with no internal structure, products of the

imitative tendency of matter which, equipped with memory, repeats from force of

habit the forms already accepted. . .

These creatures - mobile, sensitive to stimuli, and yet outside the pale of real

life- could be brought forth by suspending certain complex colloids in solutions of

kitchen salt. (Schulz 66)

These generatio aequivoca demonstrate the fathers ability as an alchemist, as he creates

life out of matter; but they also raise questions of science and morality as they are created

through a scientific experiment. In the following page the father compares them to “the richness

of shapes and the splendor of the pseudofauna and pseudoflora, which sometimes appeared in

certain strictly defined environments, such as old apartments saturated with emanations of

numerous existences and events” (Schulz 67). These naturally occurring “pseudofauna and

pseudoflora” are infinitely more magical as they grow, flower, and wilt as if performing for the

father.

Throughout the novel the father develops into quite a proficient alchemist, but what is

most interesting is that Schulz does not strictly follow Bachelard’s ideas that:

Literature itself is “une rêverie parlée”, the solemn science of awakening matter

into life. The action is double: matter, on which all the magic powers of the poet

are concentrated, intensifies those powers, and the poet-alchemist, by bringing the

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inanimate world into consciousness, will eventually conquer the unconscious

darkness within himself. (Caws 39)

Although Schulz also “calls forth the anima mundi imprisoned in opaque existence” rather than

having the alchemist-father figure always “awaken matter into life” he also puts life asleep into

matter by transforming Uncle Edward into a door bell in “The Comet” (Caws 39).

Ultimately what the father’s character achieves is to bring the reader to “the supreme

point, the cornerstone of the surrealist cosmology, the living focal-point of real and

surreal” (Carrouges 11). The beautiful scenes and the strange transformations work to prepare the

reader for the father. They keep the reader alert and open, while gently preparing the way for the

esoteric knowledge stored within the role of the father. Then through the father’s activity we are

repeatedly shown what is on opposing sides of “the supreme point.” On one side there is matter

turned into life, on the other life is turned into matter. On one side the father is alive, on the

other he is dead. On one side the father has hatched a menagerie of real living birds, on the

other the birds are only papier-mâché monstrosities. Around and around the reader swings, while

“everything leads us to believe that there is a certain point in the spirit [of the novel] from which

life and death, real and imaginary, past and future, communicable and incommunicable are no

longer perceived as contradictory” (Caws 11 (Manifestes, p. 92)).

It is important to note also, that Schulz does not fail to question society and social norms.

The title chapter “The Street of Crocodiles” calls into question the structure and the perceptions

of society particularly in regards to ideas of morality. We are introduced to the Street of

Crocodiles through a map that is unusual in both it’s ambiguous and detailed nature, which

directly reflects the idea that one may have very specific ideas about a neighborhood, while

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knowing only general information about it. This idea is proven true when we are told that “the

old established inhabitants of the city kept away from that area where the scum, the lowest orders

had settled - creatures without character, without background, moral dregs, that inferior species

of human being which is born in such ephemeral communities” (Schulz 101). It is essential

though that the reader is exposed to the truth, so Schulz allows a respectable city dweller to

venture into the Street of Crocodiles. There a pornography shop masquerades as a tailor shop,

and the reader is able to escape with their dignity in tact, leaving them both relieved and

disappointed. As Schulz departs from the Street of Crocodiles we learn that “the inhabitants of

the city are quite proud of the odor of corruption emanating from the Street of Crocodiles,” and

so the reader is left to question whether it is the Street of Crocodiles that should be condemned or

the respectable city dwellers (Schluz 108). Finally the truth is revealed “our hopes were a

fallacy, the suspicious appearance of the premises and of the staff were a sham, the clothes were

real clothes, and the salesman had no ulterior motives. The women of the Street of Crocodiles

are depraved to only a modest extent, stifled by thick layers of moral prejudice and ordinary

banality” (Schulz 110).

For Schulz there is real importance in adding this chapter, a social commentary, into the

center of The Street of Crocodiles. Upon reflection, it becomes reasonable to not only question

society, religion, reality, but to question surreality itself. Is society truly broken, or is it another

of the many ways in which one can depart from reality to the surreal? Schulz nods at Kafka

through the fathers relationship with cockroaches, to the point that he even begins a mutation. In

similar ways he touches on the ideas of many of the predominant surrealist minds. He

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demonstrates not only his keen knowledge and understanding of the concepts of surrealism, but

also his awareness of the movement itself.

In the end one, though, is left wondering if Schulz truly believes that surrealism will

survive, as many claimed it would. Or if instead it would fade away as another fad. “The

Comet” leaves us with some disappointment when the world does not end.

The comet proceeded bravely, rode fast like an ambitious horse in order to reach

the finish line on time. The fashion of the season ran with him. For a time, he

took the lead of the era, to which he lent his shape and name. Then the two

gallant mounts drew even and ran neck-to-neck in a strained gallop, our hearts

beating in fellow feeling with them. Later on, fashion overtook by a nose and

outstripped the indefatigable bolide. That millimeter decided the fate of the

comet. It was doomed, it had been outdistanced forever. Our hearts now ran

along with fashion, leaving the splendid comet behind. . . He was unplaced in the

race, the force of novelty was exhausted, nobody cared any more for a thing that

had been outstripped so badly. Left to itself, it quietly withered away amid

universal indifference. (Schulz 159)

The comet appears to be linked to the surrealist movement or at least dadaism. The

comparison to a horse race reflects the bitter sadness of defeat, but also allows the reader some

hope that perhaps the horse will run again. Although from The Street of Crocodiles it is clear

that Schulz has mastered surrealist literature, one is forced to question how he feels about it and

how oneself should feel about it. In a search for the answer one turns back to the dominant

theme of the father. There it is found, as the novel progresses, that the father falls further into

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madness until his shop is replaced by a landscape of happy vacationers; his final grandiose

departure from reality, leaving him depressed and broken. The father and the reader are

disappointed as each of his previous discoveries are lost in the quagmire of reality. Schulz brings

surreality alive, but to what end? Is there truly a reward, beyond pleasure, in knowing the

surreal? The mundane is all around us, and the surreal is a wonderful escape. So then what is the

benefit of intimate knowledge of the surreal? Will it force us to live in a universe of

disappointment and madness once we obtain a crescendo? Perhaps it is better to live on the edges

of the surreal, occasionally glimpsing under the screen to behold the fantastic, but never

departing into that dangerous land.

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Bibliograpy

Carrouges, Michel. André Breton and the Basic Concepts of Surrealism. Trans. Maura

Prendergast, S.N.D.. University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1974. Print.

Caws, Mary Ann. Surrealism and the Literary Imagination: A Study of Breton and Bachelard.

The Hague: Mouton & Co, 1966. Print.

Ficowski, Jerzy. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz. Trans. Walter Arndt and Victoria Nelson.

New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Print.

Harris, Steven. Surrealist Art and Thought in the 1930s: Art, Politics, and the Psyche.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

Montagu, Jemima. The Surrealists: Revolutionaries in Art & Writing 1919-35. London: Tate

Publishing, 2002. Print.

Schulz, Bruno. The Street of Crocodiles. Trans. Celina Wieniewska. New York: Penguin Books,

1977. Print.

Tythacott, Louise. Surrealism and the Exotic. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.

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