Butterfly Imagery Analysis (23 August 21)

| “How does one become a butterfly?”

The central imagery of this series is something that was consciously and purposefully put outward since the very beginning – Nabi 나비 (noun) the Korean word for butterfly.

| Central Image

The central image is the core of a story. It binds a narrative altogether, makes it concrete, and makes its elements organic.

It also sets a story’s premise, and gives us a peek on its trajectory.

The use of the butterfly as a central image in this series has been apparent since the very beginning --

Nabi, our protagonist, is named after it.

| What’s in a name?

The significance of a character’s name is further underscored if it was chosen for its meaning. Here, naming the protagonist Nabi was a conscious choice that binds the elements of this series, from its character sketches to its narrative.

| Metamorphosis

A butterfly, Nabi, is often used as a symbol for change, resurrection, and transformation. This is because the process of metamorphosis is when a lowly caterpillar is transformed into a beautiful butterfly.

| Caterpillar

In the beginning of the story, Nabi, though her name means butterfly, was NOT YET a butterfly – she was a caterpillar crawling on earth and feeding on flowers, grass, and waste, only vaguely aware that she could be a beautiful butterfly.

| Caterpillar

Nabi was portrayed as a hesitant young woman stripped off her self-agency, an aftermath of the gaslighting she suffered from her previous relationship and trauma from her childhood.

More on that here.

Nabi was also a talented yet uninspired art student.

She was struggling to meet her full potential, because she was approaching her art with reluctance and doubt, parallel to how she approaches her life in general.

Nabi wanted to go to Paris to study art, but we did not see her wanting it THAT bad. She wanted to go, but she was not proactively doing anything about it – she lacked the confidence and the conviction to pursue it.

She felt low-spirited and while she was pulling off long hours for her piece, she was not making any progress, and neither was she happy about working on it.

Just like her statue that Hyeonwoo made for her, Nabi was defeated, succumbing to external forces, and was not taking charge of her own life. Like a caterpillar, she was crawling aimlessly and at a rather slower pace.

| Butterfly Tattoo

It is at this point in her life that she meets another character who we associate with the butterfly – Park Jaeeon. JE was portrayed as someone who was cool, calm, and collected. Nabi speedily forms a connection with him.

For the majority of the story, we see JE from Nabi’s POV. We were framed to see JE from Nabi’s eyes and from her own prejudices, and from what Nabi hears about JE from other people. As such, we were also judging JE from Nabi’s lenses.

We know little about JE. His words are marked with brevity and his relationships are fleeting. It makes it difficult to know him as much as we know Nabi, but his actions are enough to tell that he too has his own internal struggles.

| Two Caterpillars 

And JE was no butterfly either – like Nabi, he too was a caterpillar.

He had in him the potential to grow and change emotionally, but just like Nabi, he had yet to be aware of the freedom that being a butterfly will give to him.

We saw the relationship between these caterpillars unfold. We had the front seat in watching their relationship grow, because Nabi and JE only shared intimacy in private, obscured from the prying eyes of other people in the story.

These caterpillars, Nabi and JE, crawled through mud and branches together, ate the same leaves, flowers and waste, until one day one caterpillar decided that it was time to withdraw in an effort to heal, change, and grow.

| Chrysalides

However, like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, the changes that occurred to them weren’t explicitly drawn out for the audience to see. 

Instead, they manifest in the subtle moments, so subtle that to some people they may have seemed negligible.

It reminds me of this quote from an allegory of the butterfly and its metamorphosis: “During the change, it will seem to you or to anyone who might peek that nothing is happening, but the butterfly is already becoming.” - Hope for the Flowers

At the same time, Nabi and JE transformed within their own chrysalides and weren’t privy to the changes that the other was making.

So, while in the in-between, they had misunderstandings to the point where they almost tore each other apart.

But the moment they were able to break out of their chrysalides, Nabi was able to blossom into the artist that she was supposed to become. 

At the same time, she has also regained her agency and control over her life.

| Butterfly

On his end, JE was able to embrace that there is strength, not weakness, in certainty and vulnerability.

Perhaps the most fitting images for Nabi’s transformation are the sculptures related to her.

 

In the first episode, this was Nabi – her body parallel to the ground, like the lowly caterpillar that crawls on earth.

| Butterflies

In the finale, Nabi stood tall, free from the fragments of her past that now lay on the ground, her head tilted to the sky, her wings spread wide open and ready to fly. 

And beside her, Park JaeEon, the other butterfly.

“Once you are a butterfly, you can really love – the kind of love that makes new life. It’s better than all the hugging caterpillars can do.” -Trina Paulus | Hope for the Flowers

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