The Dead Butterfly Interpretation

“Dead butterfly” is about a depressed girl that is holding onto the past by carrying around a butterfly that reminds her of her brother so the mom asks herself questions about past events to figure out why her daughter won’t let the butterfly go. The main tone of the “dead butterfly” is depressed. Bass wrote “We just lived with the dead winged thing as part of her, as part of us, weightless in its heavy jar.” (bass 3.5-7). It is depressing because she is having to just come to terms that the girl is carrying around a dead butterfly. She had been carrying the butterfly in a jar for months and she took it everywhere with her. The Dead butterfly makes the tone depressing since she just carries it around. The mother of the girl looks back to the past for answers as to why her daughter carries the butterfly. She asks the question “Was this the year her brother was born?” and “Was this her own too fragile baby that lived -so briefly- in its glassed world?” (bass 2.7-9). She refers to the butterfly living in a glassed world like how a baby is in an incubator which could be her brother being born or possibly dying. The daughter keeps

“for months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar” (bass 1.1-2). The butterfly could have died around the same time her brother did. The girl went on treating it like a pet and like it was alive even though it was dead. She kept it even when it died because it reminded her of her brother in the incubator. The butterfly was probably caught when it was alive since the girl had it for so long. Ellen Bass used the depressing tone and the questions about the past events about the brother in the poem to show not to hold onto the past. She shows this by telling the story of a depressed girl that carries around a dead butterfly because it reminds her of her brother. Bass wanted us to learn that you can’t move forward if you are stuck in the