The Bear William Faulkner | Leonard Gilley (essay date 1965)
Leonard Gilley (essay date 1965)
SOURCE: "The Wilderness Theme in Faulkner's 'The Bear'," in The Midwest Quarterly, Vol. VI, No. 4, July, 1965, pp. 379-85.
[Below, Gilley contradicts prevalent interpretations of "The Bear" that view the wilderness as romantic, showing instead that Isaac McCaslin "flouted the right use of the Wilderness."]
Critical analyses of William Faulkner's "The Bear" are more abundant than mosquitoes around a trout stream in June. Yet most of the analyses that I have examined concur in explicating the Tallahatchie hunting ground as an idyllic Eden; and although some analyses criticize the central figure of the tale, Isaac McCaslin, because he abnegates his responsibilities in regard to the plantation and to his marriage, none of the analyses I have read suggests that perhaps Isaac is violent in his relationship to the Wilderness—That he is a prime destroyer, just as is Old Ben, who leaves carnage everywhere as his...
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