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The Bear
Born and raised in Oxford, Mississippi, Faulkner took an interest in the literary arts at a young age. Called to action by World War 1, Faulkner dropped out of high school for a short military career. He continued his education and the University of Mississippi in Oxford where he published many poems and romantic works in the university newspaper (William Faulkner). Later, Faulkner famously created a very unique allegory through his storytelling. Using a fictional county, Yoknapatawpha County, he was, through a series of novels, able to illustrate themes of decay in the old south and give clarification to a new south. Additionally, in Yoknapatawpha, time seemed to move mysteriously between the historical past and the American present. Novels such as The Sound and the Fury (1929) and Sanctuary (1931) show the degeneration of the old south (William Faulkner – Biographical).
Between 1929 and 1942 Faulkner produced at a blistering pace some of his most well-known and best material. He created two collections of short stories, a full volume of poetry, and ten full-length novels. Despite his production, Faulkner remained relatively unknown. His complex writing style, use of stream of consciousness, long sentences, puzzling punctuation, flashbacks, repetition, and multiple points of view contributed to his immediate lack of public appeal. That finally changed in 1946 with publication of The Portable Faulkner.
My literary analysis will be on Faulkner’s short story entitled, “The Bear”, which can be found in a collection of short stories titled, The Big Woods. These works include many fictional conflicts through hunting stories that pit man against nature at first glance, but also shows man’s humanity and the dependence mankind has upon nature. Through these stories, Faulkner portrays the underlying juxtaposition of desire and respect. These stories, “The Bear” in particular, perfectly exemplify green literature.
Sam, The Boy, and The Bear: A Green Literary Analysis of “The Bear”
While watching the Green Bay Packers one Sunday afternoon last October, I could not help but notice the abundance of bad commercials. I watched as people advocated warehouse, blowout sales or a used car sales at the local Ford dealer. Suddenly, a “Pure Michigan” advertisement aired. Probably from their division of tourism, but nonetheless, it was unlike the rest. This advertisement made me feel something. I was no longer watching TV as a spectator or consumer; I was someone who needed to make a change, someone who could no longer be a passive consumer, because there was a greater purpose. This advertisement perfectly demonstrated the pastoral mode, which calls for a deep respect and unity with the natural world in which we live. In a similar way, “The Bear,” written by William Faulkner, illustrates through Sam, the boy and the bear, the complex interrelationships among mankind and the wilderness.William Faulkner is not an author typically associated as an environmentalist writer. Although the old south and nature often play a key element in his stories, he had never published any work advocating for the protection of nature. However, “The Bear,” is a rare exception of this trend. Published in 1942, “The Bear” embodies all the qualities of “green” literature. A hunting story and part of Faulkner’s The Big Woods collection, “The Bear” portrays the evolution of one boy and his connectedness to the wilderness. Set in Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, this short story explores the maturation of a young boy as he develops as a woodsman. The young boy connects with Sam, a father figure who transcends typical socialization; an ageless bear; and an unbounded, timeless forest. Sam and the boy, through their behaviors, prove to the readers that the wilderness is something to be respected and understood. Although they are hunters Sam teaches the boy that success is not at all about harvesting an animal. Contrasted by today’s society that is directly focused on the accumulation of wealth and material possessions, the last hunt that the boy goes on challenges the anthropocentric viewpoint that man must be master and possessor of nature. It advocates an eco-centric line of thinking when the much prophesized bear is allowed to walk free. Finally, through the detailed description and focus that Faulkner places on the setting of the story, readers are transcended through time, to the old south, to the timeless wilderness that for generations the boy’s ancestors have hunted.
Faulkner begins the short story describing what the young boy knew about the prestigious old bear. As a young boy, he only hears tall tales of a seemingly immortal and mystical beast that is greater than any other. The boy understood that there was an implied divinity with the bear. He knew about the bear well before he was actually able to go out and hunt for himself. He heard his father giving qualities to the bear such as, “indomitable,” “invincible,” and “absolved of mortality” (3). From the moment he was able to understand, the boy knew this bear demanded the highest respect. The bear is a supernatural force, unaffected by the violent attacks of society “even calves carried bodily into the woods and devoured, of traps and deadfalls overthrown and dogs mangled and slain, and shotgun and even rifle charges delivered at point-blank range and with no more effect than so many peas blown through a tube…” (2). Further, the bear is described as a giant where “puny humans swarmed” (3) around him like, “pygmies about the ankles of a drowsing elephant” (3). In the end, readers observe through the “wild and invincible spirit of an old bear” (22), that there is deep appreciation for and underlying unity with man and nature. This description directly correlates to the romantic sublime. The sublime focuses on emotions and feelings and is closely related to the divine. A great feeling of awe becomes present to the reader and the experience the young boy eventually has with the bear perfectly captures feelings associated with the sublime.
On his first hunting trip, the boy is paired with Sam Fathers, one of the older men in the camp. Sam, acting as the boy's mentor, tells the boy that the bear is smart and, “That’s how come he has lived this long” (7). Taught by Sam, the boy gains skills greater than anyone else in his camp, including his own father. Sam’s dialect is critical for the reader’s full understanding. Sam’s voice reinforces the regional tone and due to its lack of complexity, it magnifies his connections to the natural world rather than the anthropocentric world. Sam’s innate understanding of the bear demonstrates that his instincts set him apart from other hunters and reinforce his union with the natural world. Additionally, Sam’s personal history is quite different from the boy’s family. He was “the old man, the Indian in the battered faded overalls and the frayed five-cent straw hat which in the Negro’s race had been the badge of his enslavement and was now the regalia of his freedom” (12). Sam was the son of a Negro slave and an Indian king, and because he is part Native American and African American, he lives on the fringes of society, but free of society’s programming.
As the boy matures, he becomes one of the finest woodsmen in the hunting group. He knows the woods better than anyone, except Sam. On an expedition to come face to face with the bear, the boy takes some radical risks. First, he leaves his gun at the camp. Later, after unsuccessfully tracking the bear, he leaves behind the other “societal” contraptions, “…the watch, the compass, the stick – the three lifeless mechanicals with which for nine hours he had fended the wilderness off; he hung the watch and compass carefully on a bush and leaned the stick beside them and relinquished completely to it” (14). The “it” Faulkner refers to is the forest, nature, and wilderness. Literally the boy is completely surrendering himself to nature, but symbolically he unites with nature. With nothing to guide him or to protect him, other than his brain, the boy walks into the alien country in complete solitude, but with the utmost respect for nature’s power. The boy reflects, “…the same solitude, the same loneliness through which human beings had merely passed without altering it, leaving no mark, no scar, which looked exactly as it must have looked when the first ancestor of Sam Fathers’ Chickasaw predecessors crept into it” (8). Faulkner emphasizes the timeless, unaltered wilderness reveal the boy’s mature personality and heightened consciousness for our world, and perhaps more importantly for this essay, demonstrates that humans can never possess nature. Throughout the story, Faulkner shares vivid imagery of a beautiful landscape and the boy’s reverence for the physical world.
Having given up some “essentials” for survival Sam comes face to face with the immortal being. Faulkner writes, “They had looked at each other, they had emerged from the wilderness old as earth, synchronized to the instant by something more than the blood that moved the flesh and bones which bore them, and touched, pledged something, affirmed something more lasting that the frail web of bones and flesh which any accident could obliterate” (17). Interestingly, only after the boy has given up the trappings of society (watch, compass) used to navigate the wilderness does he actually see the bear for the first time. Later, at the end of the story, the boy’s father asks him if he “sees.” The moment that the boy gives up his possessions is the first time that he is able to see. He is no longer clouded by direction or constrained by time. It is the boy becoming one with the wilderness. As an eco-critic one may say that this clearer vision is directly comparable to the consumer society that we live in. Each day millions of men and women go to work to grind out a paycheck to make their next purchase. Each person is constantly in a search of more money and more money. Faulkner wants his readers to realize, that in order to effect actual change, we must first give up society’s trappings because it distracts us from reality.
Faulkner further portrays an eco-centric shift when the boy encounters the bear the final time. This time the boy has his gun ready and has devised a plan to lure the bear within shooting range. The boy chooses not to harvest the bear because that is not the only objective of the hunt. The bear is like the forest in so many ways, but critically different in one special way. The woods have incredible value to the people who enjoy its resources and to the wild animals who survive there. Practically speaking, it is a source of life. The bear, however, does not necessarily have the same practical value, but eliminating him may have unintended consequences. The boy respects the bear’s divine nature too much to shoot.
At the end of the short story the boy’s father reads him a few lines from a poem. His father reads, “Courage, honor, and pride… and pity, and love of justice, and of liberty. They all touch the heart, and what the heart holds too becomes truth, as far as we know the truth. Do you see now? (23). The introduction of Keats’s poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is like a story within a story and allows the reader to make some interpretations about the themes that connect to “The Bear”. Along with elements giving the story qualities of the sublime, it contains passages such as “Grecian Urn,” which is a pastoral poem depicting rural perfection, so it fits. Furthermore, the two works both imply that what we do not know or do not see or hear, may be better than what we do sense. The bear, like the artwork on the urn, is timeless and beautiful. A final connection is the boy’s father’s opinion, that truth and beauty are equal. This forces readers to recognize truth in the world today. It calls for reflection and action to be like the boy in the story. In the face of danger or environmental crises, we all need to act with courage, honor, and pride. We need to all love what is beautiful and to give thanks that we have the freedom to make changes. This is the truth that is revealed at the end of the story. Metaphorically, Faulkner places future action on us. We need to shift from fear, where we are chopping down trees, and become more like the boy where we are willing to relinquish our possessions and develop appreciation.
One may notice how the present condition of the earth has changed dramatically from the world 100 years ago. Still, one may not notice the fractions of change from the world yesterday because, although it is in a constant flux, most changes are imperceptible. A driving force behind that change is mankind, “… the doomed wilderness whose edges were being constantly and punily gnawed at by men with axes and plows who feared it because it was wilderness…” (3). Humans are slowly diminishing the natural resources on the planet and, for example, causing the climate to become increasingly warmer, diminishing our eco-wealth and reducing biodiversity. We are slowly destroying the world in which we live. However, this can be stopped. The “green” movement, generating popularity today, has given rise to many forms of inspirational, environmental movements, one of the most popular being eco-criticism of literature. Through this theory, critics are able to express their views and opinions on how to help and to effect change in a positive way. Green, environmentalist literary criticism protects the integrity of nature. These pieces of non-fiction portray the truthful fact that it is possible for man to live in harmony with the wilderness. If fictional stories, like “The Bear” are relatable, then the reader may be motivated to change. If an eco-centric piece relates to the reader and sparks an emotional appeal, then changes of behavior will occur. Today, in our consumer driven society, we experience a heavy dose of anthropocentric motivation. This negative connotation implies that humans are at the center of the world and nature is valuable only insofar as it benefits humans. A shift must occur and bring society towards a more eco-centric world, one where nature is at the center and humans interact within it. The final step in the eco-criticism process is to use our informed imagination to improve the world today. The story should envelop the reader and propel them to experience and action for the natural order. This is the motivating force behind actual change. Without this understanding of what true and pure wilderness is, there can be no effective change. Our imagination may provide direction for change.
Media retrieved from: Imgmob. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.