As Bright As Heaven

At several points, the novel employs butterflies as a symbol of that which is beautiful but fleeting, much like human life itself. When Maggie learns that they are moving from their hometown to Philadelphia, the butterflies she saw in a shop that she was saving up to buy provide a metaphor for what she is losing. Evelyn reminds her that the butterflies are already dead, which Maggie thinks is cruel to say, though Evelyn is pointing out the truth. Evelyn herself feels guilty about tarnishing Maggie’s dreams and goes on to remind her that butterflies do not live long lives. Pauline develops this thought, and the symbolism of it, in her reflections in the embalming room when she considers, “We are like butterflies, delicate and wonderful, here on earth for only a brilliant moment and then away we fly” (183).

Butterflies then become a symbol for Pauline’s life when Willa finds the butterfly-shaped hat pin in her mother’s jewelry box. This tangible inheritance provides solace for Willa, standing in for the love she misses. The butterfly pin becomes her talisman when she sings, a symbol not only of her own emergence as Sweet Polly Adler but also a further connection to her mother. Like the butterflies under glass, the pin is proof that what is lost does not have to disappear.

Maggie’s letters to Jamie, and his to her, begin as a way to confirm their connection and their unique way of understanding one another. Jamie reveals confidences to Maggie that he knows his mother wouldn’t appreciate or understand—for instance, his reflections on how the people he’s among, and the people he’s sent to kill, aren’t very different from him. Maggie keeps in touch with Jamie to keep this connection alive but also to provide him with moments of hope of joy, like with the confetti from the parade that she includes with one letter. Writing to him, even after he leaves again, is evidence of her love. She writes as long as she hopes their connection might continue, and when she eventually concludes that her unrequited love is hurting her, she stops.

When she sees those letters in Jamie’s bag, however, Maggie suspects at once that they mean something important. Being able to approach Jamie about them shows that she is willing to be honest about her feelings and confront the truth that she still loves Jamie and does not love Palmer, whom she has agreed to marry. The letters are the symbol of her special connection to Jamie and the hope that he says kept him alive in his most troubled times. The letters, Jamie says, are his evidence that a world skewed by tragedy or horror could eventually come right, and the action of the book as a whole follows this movement.