The Butterfly Lion

“Butterflies live only short lives. They flower and flutter for just a few glorious weeks, and then they die.”

The opening lines of The Butterfly Lion appear to be about the short life span of butterflies. However, in the context of the embedded narrative about Millie and Bertie, the lines take on new meaning: Human lives are short and glorious, but they can be filled with beauty despite hardship, Millie is saying to Michael. As the adult Morpurgo looks back on the mysterious events of his childhood, he has internalized and applied the message of the butterflies to his life.

“I often wondered later why I went with her so readily. I think it was because she expected me to, willed me to somehow.”

The author uses the literary element of foreshadowing to suggest to readers that something unexplainable will follow when Michael follows the old woman into her home. The phrase “willed me to somehow” implies magic or supernatural compulsion. At the conclusion of the novel, readers learn that Millie died many years ago, shrouding the story in the supernatural.

“‘I was just thinking,’ she said. ‘You’ll be the first young man I’ve had inside this house since Bertie.’”

Michael meets Millie after he has run away from boarding school. This mirrors the first meeting between Millie and Bertie: Bertie once ran away from the very same boarding school, and encountered Millie in the same place. There are many parallels between Bertie and Michael, who are both lonely children who feel misunderstood at the school, despite being separated by decades.