As his name suggests, Owen Warland wages a battle against society in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Beautiful Artist. Throughout the story, he strives to create Beauty, a lifelike butterfly, and overcomes many obstacles to succeed for a short time, only to have her destroyed in the final paragraphs of the story. Owen desires to transcend the material world and rise to the spiritual through his artistic creation - Beauty - and his abject rejection of the material world. However, the material world reacts and refuses to accept his quest 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: whether Owen's complete avoidance of anything material, even good, in an attempt to create art is worth the loss of humanity and community. In The Artist of the Beautiful, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes the story of an artist's struggle to transcend the material world to show his audience the enormous importance of community. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay With the Creation of the Beautiful, Owen Warland spends the duration of the story rejecting the material world with the goal of ascending into the spiritual realm in a radical, often extremist way. His choice prepares the reader to determine for themselves later whether the benefits of a complete retreat from materialism outweigh the inevitable consequences. For example, when speaking to Robert Danforth about the utilitarian strength he gains from his work as a blacksmith, Owen counters with "'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 nature's relatively unexalted creatures and their ways, Owen decides to create in his artificial butterfly a "spiritualized mechanism" (469) symbolizing transcendent beauty and its ability to inspire us heavenward” (Church 5). The artist does not create art simply for its beauty; rather, he attempts to enhance God's design in nature and to develop a creation as profound and beautiful as the work of art it inspires the viewer and allows her to enter a more spiritual world with the artist. Continuing this idea of ​​transcendentalism, Hawthorne adds: “'It was delicately worked,' said the artist calmly. 'As I told you, it has imbibed a spiritual essence'” (Hawthorne 19). Clearly, Owen injects a part of his soul and spirituality into the Beauty he strives to create, which indicates how he desires to become something greater than just a man without any greater purpose. of the worldly. Interestingly, critic David Urban raises questions about the nobility and wisdom of Owen's decision to reject the material world, stating that his "contempt for such undeniably useful, if banal, devices reveals his revulsion towards the things of ordinary people, a revulsion that is not a necessary extension of whatever solitary or peculiar behavior an artist may demonstrate while concentrating on his art” (Urban 6). This further emphasizes his extremist views towards art and beauty by underlining the lack of necessity in his behavior: the artist can create art even if he does not aggressively denounce everything that belongsto this world. Likewise, Hawthorne mentions a similar idea at the beginning of the text, commenting: “it seemed, indeed, a new development of the love of the Beautiful, such as might make him a poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and which was as thoroughly refined from all utilitarian grossness, as it might have been in either fine art” (Hawthorne 3). Owen's love of beauty is explicitly manifested in his rejection of useful devices; he takes his desire for spiritual enlightenment through art to the extreme while also rejecting the usefulness and good of the material world. Undeniably, Owen creates the Beautiful in an attempt to rise above the mundane material world by harshly renouncing it, leading the reader to wonder how this 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 causes Owen to suffer multiple setbacks with his progress in the Beautiful and, unconsciously or not, pulls him back into the material world. For example, Robert Danforth's mere presence has a significant, if disastrous, effect on Owen: "Heaven! What have I done!" [Owen] exclaimed. "The steam! The influence of that brute force! It has disconcerted me and darkened my perception. I have made the very blow - the fatal blow - which I feared from the first! It is all over: the toil of months!" (Hawthorne 5). Robert, a successful blacksmith, illustrates the epitome of pragmatic strength, and his closeness to Owen in this scene causes Owen to inadvertently undo months of hard work on the Handsome. Hawthorne indicates through this symbol of utilitarianism that the material world fights against Owen's rejection and tries to hold him back. Likewise, Joseph Church comments on Robert as a symbol of physical strength, saying that "Hawthorne describes the blacksmith as a joyful embodiment of earthly eros" (Church 4). material aspects of his character insinuating that he also represents sexual prowess, a stereotype of male strength. Secondly, Annie Hovenden, a potential love interest for Owen, causes him to miss out on Bella's advances multiple times, particularly in this scene when he. he declares, “I deceived myself… I longed for understanding – and I thought… you could give it to me… it 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 this level with him, but when; breaks the Handsome by mistake, he in fact is brought back to his worldly level Furthermore, Church focuses on the general obstacles he provides to Owen: “he finds inspiration in Annie, the young woman he loves, but when he discovers it is her. married Danforth, the blacksmith, ceases to work” (Church 3) Not only does the love that Annie symbolizes actively denies Owen the possibility of spiritual elevation, but she simply seeks to slow his progress by forcing him into periods of depression for his failure paid. affection in which he cannot work. Finally, Annie's father Peter also dissuades Owen from his goal: "Peter Hovenden's opinion of his apprentice has already been expressed. He could understand nothing of the boy" (Hawthorne 3). for art rather than watchmaking, it represents the practicality of the everyday material world and the material spirit that seeks to tear Owen down from his noble pursuits. The main characters in The Artist of the Beautiful symbolize the material world that tries to prevent Owen from ascending to the spiritual world. Owen fails to truly transcend into the spiritual world because he so firmly rejects everything in the world.