Characteristics in Literature. Surrealism is meant to be strange and shocking. It is meant to push the envelope in a way that forces people out of their comfortable ideas, so much so that it has even been known to cause riots. While the idea of surrealism is complex, surrealist literature does have common characteristics. Surrealist literature will have contrasting images or ideas. This technique is used to help readers make new connections and expand the reader's reality, or rather the reader's idea of what reality is.