Elements

In Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Tim Burton, there were literary elements that stood out to me, even though I have only watched the movie.  Some of these elements are irony and personification.

Personification is when human characters are given to something that is not human.  In Sweeny Todd there are many examples of personification portrayed.  Mr. Todd often refers to his razors as his friends.  Even though a friend to a human would be a human, the razors are not.  Mrs. Todd at one point says “ at last now my arm is complete”  referring to when the razors were in his hand he felt complete.  In some friendships and/or relationships a person might say they feel complete with the other person in the relationship, as did Mr. Todd with his razors.  The meat pies made of human meat are yet another example of personification in the movie Sweeny Todd.  The meat pies are named after the people they are made of for example when Ms. Lovett says “It's priest. Have a little priest.” We all know the pie is not actually a priest, but the human like characteristic given to the pies make them personified.

Irony is another literary element expressed in Sweeny Todd.  Irony is when witty language is used to convey insults or scorn.  One example of irony that stood out tremendously was how Mr. Todd killed lots of people with his razors, and at the end of the movie he himself is killed by Toby with his own razor.  This was ironic because friends don’t kill friends.  Through out the movie Mr. Todd thinks his wife Lucy is dead, correct? Well at the end he kills around five people consecutively, with out knowing who they are. Directly before Mr. Todd kills Lucy she looks at him and says, “Do I know you?”   This is one hint that Tim Burton gives the audience, letting us know that Lucy was still alive.  When all is said and done Mr. Todd and Ms. Lovett go to the room to grind the people up and he realizes that one of the women he murdered is his wife Lucy.  This is ironic because the reason he started the killing spree was in revenge of his wife’s death, and his daughter Joanna being taken from him. 

Sweeny Todd was an extremely violent and gory movie, but I felt it was education too, because I was able to relate literary elements to events in the movie. 

Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Screenplay. Stephen Sondhein. Director Tim Burton.

2007. Dream Works. 2008. DVD