Focus on Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening and explain the Themes and symbolism.
The bayonet, as a symbol of the stinging bee, may represent the woman's abrupt awakening from her otherwise peaceful dream. This is  an example of Sigmund Freud's influence on surrealist art and Dalí's attempts to explore the world of dreams in a dreamscape.The elephant is a distorted version of the Piazza della Minerva sculpture Elephant and Obelisk by Gian Lorenzo Bernini facing the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.  The smaller pomegranate floating between two droplets of water may symbolize Venus, especially because of the heart-shaped shadow it casts. It may also be used as a Christian symbol of fertility and resurrection. This female symbolism may contrast with the phallic symbolism of the threatening creatures.It has also been suggested that the painting is "a surrealist interpretation of the Theory of Evolution."In 1962, Dalí said this painting was intended "to express for the first time in images Freud's discovery of the typical dream with a lengthy narrative, the consequence of the instantaneousness of a chance event which causes the sleeper to wake up. Thus, as a bar might fall on the neck of a sleeping person, causing them to wake up and for a long dream to end with the guillotine blade falling on them, the noise of the bee here provokes the sensation of the sting which will awaken Gala." The guillotine anecdote refers to a dream reported by Alfred Maury in Le sommeil et les rêves ("Sleep and Dreams") and related by Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams.
Santa Maria sopra Minerva dream surrealist Gala Piazza della Minerva Elephant and Obelisk The Interpretation of Dreams pomegranate Freud Dream stinging bee Evolution Alfred Maury Sigmund Freud Gian Lorenzo Bernini Theory of Evolution