Jame Gumb lying on his back just after having been killed by Starling, with curled up arms and 'bug-like' eye goggles making him appear like a dead insect.
The wind twirler hanging in Gumb's basement shown spinning, just after his death, depicts a butterfly flying among flowers. The Dictionary of Symbols says that the Aztecs considered the butterfly to symbolize "the soul or the breath of life exhaled by the dying. A butterfly fluttering among the flowers represented the soul of the warrior who had fallen on the battlefield [a]."[b]
As evidenced by the military helmet, small American flag, and toy soldier in Jame Gumb's basement window sill, Gumb must have been in the armed services at some point during his life (click image to enlarge).
a. Krickeberg, Walter, 'Les religions des peupels civilisés de Mezo-Amerique', in Religions amerindiennes, translated from the German by L. Jospin, Paris, 1962, p. 43.
b. Dictionary of Symbols, Ed. Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, Trans. John Buchanan-Brown, London: Penguin Group, 1996, p. 141.
