Blog 13

In my opinion, the ending is extremely miserable. Desiree’s experience in the Hotel is like a series of nice dreams, which makes the her suffer in the ending more tragic. For Desiree, she has devoted herself into Daniel’s health and longed for their marriage all the time. When the butterflies “demand to escape”, she stubbornly holds on to them because of her eagerness to Daniel. Nevertheless, Daniel betrays her, or he has never thought of marrying to her at all. No one cares about Desiree’s contribution after Daniel’s recovering. Even when she eventually gives up herself and takes the punishment of Papa Ge for Daniel, she does not earn a glance from him. When she eventually loses her life, all her strong wishes, the butterflies she has caught in the past, break the “cage” and take her sole away from the place she does not belong to. Her life is regarded as trash that ordered by Gabriel Beauxhomme, “[Lucifus picks] up the corpse by an arm and leg, dumps it at the side of the road to await the garbage collector(168).” Desiree has never achieved her wishes, and because she has experienced the hope of making her wish come true, the ending becomes even worse and more painful. 

This ending is trying to teach readers that we should always be practical and never devote ourselves into impossible dreams. It is true that we need dreams and insist on pursuing our dreams. However, most wishes are not as valuable as our lives. Therefore, we should always accept failure and forgo chasing impossible dreams with huge expenses. Furthermore, we should not have relentless desire. When we set ourselves certain goals, we have to stop as long as we achieve those goals. If we greedily try to gain more than we really should get, we will eventually pay off for our avaricious. Do not forget our original intention, or we might lose ourselves when struggling in the ocean of desires.