I First level of meaning
This is a narrative that contains quite a lot of fictitious elements when seen from our modern horizon of expectations: the Artist is engaged in a seemingly impossible act of uniting spirit and matter, something that only God is supposed to be capable of. On top of all this, the destruction of his masterpiece does not affect him badly at all, since he appears to have achieved something else during the process of creation. We are still puzzled by unanswered questions: what is the butterfly, what is the talisman, why is Annie improper for Owen, why is the little child a monkey?
Interpretation
1. Formal and technical characteristic features
With narrative fiction, we cannot observe so many formal characteristics as in the case of poetry, since the structure is not so concise and in this case it follows the traditional format of prose fiction. We know this is a short story by Hawthorne, an important figure of American romanticism, who actually called his short stories tales. This already preconditions our horizon of expectations, and we will not be surprised to read something which has to do with fantasy, vision and subjective world-view.
We can identify the most important narrative techniques which will have an important role in our interpretation. We have a narrator which is the main source of our information about the represented world, and which appears to be almost omniscient: it occupies a bird’s eye view external focalization position to the events, it seems to be equally able to see into open and enclosed spaces and places, it can move back and forward in time, it can penetrate the mind of the characters and give us an insight into their thoughts. However, we very often realize that it gives us subjective opinions and commentaries even if they are not necessary and not indispensable to the plot: in this respect, we have an intruding narrator who often seems to be so subjective that we might even suspect that it is an unreliable narrator. We treat the information given by the narrator with caution, especially since the story itself is quite unbelievable upon first reading: it is about a person who, after repeated attempts and failures, succeeds in creating a mechanical butterfly, a living piece of machinery, and who is not depressed or sad at all when finally this miraculous creation of his is destroyed in the end.
2. Worlds
On the basis of the most important characters, agents and voices, and the ideologies they represent, we can distinguish two different worlds in this narrative. Owen Warland, the young watchmaker is a representative of art, beauty and intellect. Opposed to him is the rest of the entire world, with the iron-strong and material blacksmith Robert Danforth as the opposite of Owen’s spiritual principles, and the old and cynical Peter Hovenden as his real enemy. Hovenden’s daughter, Annie first appears to be able to become a helper for Owen through beauty and love, but the Artist later has to realize that she cannot be a partner for her, she “lacks the talisman.” Thus, we have the world of Spirit (W1) and the world of Matter (W2) in opposition in this text, and Owen’s effort to create a mechanical butterfly can be interpreted as an attempt to interpret between these two worlds, to unite the two radically opposite principles of the universe. Uniting W1 and W2 will be successful in the end, but we are puzzled to read that the Artist cannot be affected by the destruction of the Butterfly. Our interpretation has to explain this arbitrary element of the narrative.
3. Relevant attributes and their connotative meanings
We now move on to an examination of the relevant attributes in order to see if their connotative meanings reveal more abstract and complex levels of meaning.
Owen Warland: a watchmaker, he deals with time, order, and art, he is an artist, he wants to unite spirit and matter, he wants to put spirit into machinery, he has ethereal power, he worships beauty
Peter Hovenden: Warland’s enemy, old, money-minded, materialistic, sagacious, cynical
Robert Danforth: a blacksmith, works in a smoky, dark, fire-lit blacksmith’s shop, his attributes are physical strength, material creation, anvil, hammer, fire, coal
Annie: beautiful, but she does not understand Owen, and cannot help him in his efforts, accidentally destroys the mechanical butterfly
Child: he is called “a little monkey” by his father, he unwillingly destroys the mechanical butterfly, he has the same sagacious look as his grandfather old Peter Hovenden
Butterfly 1: the mechanical butterfly which symbolizes the union of spirit and matter, the transcending of material limits
Butterfly 2: the living butterfly which keeps returning to remind Owen of his task, his attributes are wings, travelling between worlds, bringing messages
When we consider the relevant attributes and their possible extra, connotative meanings, we rely on the entire inventory of our cultural codes: this is what we call our repertoire. We can rely on our knowledge of literature, mythology, religion, symbolism: everything that might help us put the attributes into a wider context. Expanding our vision, we will realize that many of the attributes appear to have to do with figures of classical mythology or religious symbolism. Owen Warland carries the attributes of Apollon (Roman Apollo), the Greek god of the arts, beauty, order, and the city. He wants to achieve something which is the prerogative of God or the gods, so he is also comparable to Prometheus. Danforth is very similar to Hephaestus (Roman Vulcan), the god of blacksmiths and material creation, while the butterfly carries the attributes of Hermes (Roman Mercury), the messenger of the gods with winged sandals and a winged hat. Peter Hovenden is comparable to the figure of Satan, applying negation, cynical and sagacious criticism to everything, while the young child also carries a Christian symbolical attribute, because in Christian iconography (the system of symbolical representations and meanings) the monkey is the symbol of total ignorance, dark, material existence.