As his name suggests, Owen Warland wages a battle against society in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Artist of Beauty. Throughout the story, he strives to create Beau, a realistic butterfly, and overcomes many setbacks to briefly succeed, only to see it destroyed in the story's final paragraphs. Owen wishes to transcend the material world and rise to the spiritual through his creation of art – Beauty – and his abject rejection of the material world. However, the material world fights back and refuses to accept his search for spirituality; in the characters of Robert Danforth, Annie Hovenden, and Peter Hovenden, Hawthorne creates symbols of physical strength, love, and practicality that combat Owen's dreams of achieving a higher spiritual existence. At the end of the story, the reader must answer an important question: Is the fact that Owen completely avoids everything material, even good, in his attempt to create art worth the loss of the humanity and community. In The Artist of the Beautiful, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes the story of an artist's struggle to transcend the material world in order to show his audience the overwhelming importance of community. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay With the creation of The Beautiful, Owen Warland spends the entire duration of the story rejecting the material world in an attempt to self elevate into the spiritual realm in a radical, often extremist way. His choice prepares the reader to later determine for himself whether the benefits of completely withdrawing from materialism outweigh the inevitable consequences. For example, when speaking to Robert Danforth about the utilitarian strength he derives from his work as a blacksmith, Owen responds, "'my strength, whatever it may be, is entirely spiritual'" (Hawthorne 5). By specifically stating that his creative force is spiritual rather than material, Owen expresses his desire to transcend the material world and work only with a more divine nature. Similarly, literary critic Joseph Church comments: "dissatisfied with the relatively lowly creatures of nature and their ways of acting. , Owen decides to create in his artificial butterfly a “spiritualized mechanism” (469) symbolizing transcendent beauty and its capacity to inspire us towards heaven” (Church 5). The artist does not create art simply because of its beauty; rather it attempts to enhance God's design in nature and develop a creation so profound and beautiful that the work of art inspires the viewer and allows them to enter into a more spiritual world with the artist. Continuing this idea of ​​transcendentalism, Hawthorne adds: “'It was delicately worked,' the artist said calmly. “As I told you, he became imbued with a spiritual essence” (Hawthorne 19). Clearly, Owen injects some of his own soul and spirituality into the Beauty he strives to create, indicating how much he desires to become something greater than just a man with no aim more greater than the mundane. Interestingly, critic David Urban raises questions regarding the nobility and wisdom of Owen's decision to reject the material world, stating that his "disdain for such undeniably useful, if mundane, devices reveals his revulsion toward the things of ordinary people, a repulsion that is not real.” a necessary extension of any reclusive or idiosyncratic behavior an artist might demonstrate while concentrating on his craft” (Urban 6). This further highlights his extremist views towards art and beauty by highlighting the lack of necessity in hisbehavior: the artist can create art even if he does not aggressively denounce everything that comes from this world. Similarly, Hawthorne mentions a similar idea early in the text: commenting, "it seemed, in fact, a new development of the love of Beauty, such as might have made him a poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and which was as completely refined from all utilitarian crudeness, as might have been in any of the fine arts” (Hawthorne 3). Owen's love of beauty is explicitly manifested in the rejection of useful devices; he takes his desire for spiritual enlightenment through art to the extreme by rejecting even the useful and good of the material world. Undeniably, Owen creates the Beautiful in an attempt to rise above the ordinary material world by harshly renouncing it, leading the reader to wonder how it will work out for him in the end. Although Owen strives to free himself from the constraints of the material world, several materialistic aspects hinder him, as represented by three other main characters: Robert Danforth, Annie Hovenden, and Peter Hovenden. Each individual subjects Owen to multiple misadventures in his progress on the Beautiful and, unconsciously or not, brings him back to the material world. For example, the mere presence of Robert Danforth has a significant, if disastrous, effect on Owen: “Heavens! What have I done! [Owen] exclaimed. "The steam! The influence of this brute force! It stunned me and obscured my perception. I made the very blow, the fatal blow, that I feared from the beginning! It is over, the labor of many month!' (Hawthorne 5). symbol of utilitarianism that the material world fights against Owen's rejection and attempts to hold him back. Similarly, Joseph Church comments on Robert as a symbol of physical strength, saying that "Hawthorne depicts the blacksmith as a joyous embodiment of. earthly eros” (Church 4). his progress on Beauty, notably in this scene where he declares: "I was wrong... I yearned for sympathy - and I thought... that you could give it to me... that's not Wasn't your fault, Annie - but you ruined me! " (Hawthorne 10). Annie clearly symbolizes love, yet another materialistic concept that prevents Owen from ascending to the spiritual level; blinded by his love for her, he foolishly confides in her in an attempt to bring her to that level with him, but when she breaks the Beau by mistake, he is actually brought back to his worldly level. Additionally, Church focuses on the general obstacles she imposes on Owen: "he finds inspiration in Annie, the young woman he loves, but when he learns that she is. married Danforth, the blacksmith, he ceases to work” (Church 3). Not only does the love that Annie symbolizes actively deny Owen the chance to rise spiritually, but it simply seeks to slow his progress by forcing him into periods of depression because of its lack of reciprocation. condition in which he cannot work. Finally, Peter, Annie's father, also dissuades Owen from his goal: “Peter Hovenden's opinion of his apprentice has already been expressed. He could do nothing with the boy” (Hawthorne 3). for art rather than watchmaking, it represents the practical side of the everyday material world and the material spirit that seeks to distance Owen from his noble interests. The main characters of The Artist of Beauty symbolize the material world which tempts.