The dream state is very important in Surrealism, but jokes, humor, sarcasm and wordplay are also central to Surrealist art. Salvador Dali uses sarcasm in the title of the clocks painting, Persistence of Memory to add a darker meaning to the painting. as we've discussed, the clocks are losing their power in this dream world. They are literally melting away, and thus seem anything but "persistent" in Dali's depiction. Likewise, the ants eating away the face of the red clock also symbolizes the decaying and therefore impermanent nature of our arbitrary way of keeping time.