The Bear
Bear, The,novelette by Faulkner, published in Go Down, Moses in 1942. Early versions of parts of the work are Lion (Harper's, Dec. 1935) and The Bear (Saturday Evening Post, May 9, 1942), and an abbreviated form, without section 4 that treats of Isaac's dispossessing himself of his lands, appeared in Big Woods (1955).
One December day in the 1880s the 16-year-old Isaac McCaslin, heir of one of the good old families of Yoknapatawpha County, is taken to hunt the great bear Old Ben so that the boy may show his courage and be initiated into the ranks of men. Since the age of ten he has learned the woods and the ways of hunters on annual autumnal outings with other McCaslins, Major de Spain, General Compson, and men of Indian blood, like Boon Hogganbeck and Sam Fathers. When Ike was 13 Sam Fathers “had marked his face with the hot blood” of the first buck he had killed, and “in the next November he...
[The entire page is 373 words long]
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