The Artist of the Beautiful

As many believe this story to be an allegory to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s artistic journey, this narrative focuses on art and the artist. The artist suffers several setbacks, often immediately after encountering the characters who personify Puritan ideals. All those who might value Owen seem to denigrate him instead, and they only appreciate him when he acts dull and regulated, much like his clocks. While Owen is timid and hides his work at the beginning of the story, by the end, he has grown confident in his creation and offers it up freely to his harshest critics and greatest impediments: Robert, Peter, and Annie. When Robert and Annie’s child destroys the creation, Owen is unphased, as Hawthorne suggests it was the act of creation that was important, not the product of creation.

There’s little action in this story, but much inner struggle and strife. Owen is not certain he can achieve what he has set out to do, which is to understand and create beauty that mimics nature. The narrator summarizes his stop-and-start journey with this phrase: “The chase of butterflies was an apt emblem of the ideal pursuit in which he had spent so many golden hours; but would the beautiful idea ever be yielded to his hand like

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