"Joseph Cornell's editing tactic is to seduce through the use of dislodged movie tropes. Hence the viewer is cut loose from any normal meanings to pursue the snippets of clips and fragments taken from long-forgotten obscure movies."
That's the description of another of Joseph Cornell's movies. In this one, we have images of puppet dragons menacing puppet royalty, ships sinking, sea horses, and puppet dogs looking out of windows. If we assume the same aesthetic, then I am free to impose any interpretation on this that my id, ego, superego or what have you wish. My interpretation is that Mr. Cornell was a madman, a hoarder, and I hope he got the psychiatric help he needed.