Reasoning for Bible Allusions in the Bear - Essay Example

Also Sam Fathers painted Isaac's face with the deer of the blood after his first kill of a deer, a ritual that symbolizes sacrifices. The bear Old Ben, conversely, is a complex object of symbolism. Many scholars interpreted Old Ben as a symbol of strength and willingness of human nature. Some sees him as a symbol of freedom in wilderness. However, in Biblical allusion, Old Ben was compared to the Tree of Knowledge. Hunters are hunting down devotedly the old bear. Not because it was a threat to the nearby civilization, but because of the hunters' pride in the achievement of the wild bear's declination.

The curiosity is intriguing and enticing to accomplish. The same goes with the Tree of Knowledge. The fruit of the three was forbidden to eat. Thus it became a center of curiosity for the first man and woman habituated the garden, its taste, its effect after eating it. The majestic figure of the bear fascinated the minds of the Southern Hunters. The rewarding hunters' pride to take down Old Ben was like a devil that tempted Eve to defy and eat the forbidden fruit. It is then tempting the mind towards viciousness of the southern people to go after the cruel reward awaiting.

Canaan is obviously referring to the So. It was also directly describing the South where Faulkner himself explored with his early years as well as Isaac's during his early years, as Hebrew Bible illustrated Land of Canaan as extension southward from Gaza to the Brook of Egypt. The civilization in the second part of the story that Isaac gone to had came from the concept of Canaan. Faulkner used both Biblical places to emphasize the contrast between the wilderness and the civilization. From the Garden of Eden, Isaac fled to Canaan, and eventually learned that people in the civilization can be more uncivilized as creatures in the wilderness were, if not being paralleled.

This in regards to the lifestyle he witnessed during in his relatives in the South, like McCaslin Edmonds, and Uncles Buddy and Buck.The practice of incest, the deception in the Buck and Buddy's old ledger of ownership, Cass' prejudices, all of these made Isaac to see that Old Ben is a symbol of untamed human willingness and at a same time of great independence of human spirit. The fascination to kill Old Ben was the curse that brought in people's lives towards their greed and viciousness. Now, in the last part of the story, Boon's madness could be the result of the curse in discovering the curiosity of killing Old Ben.

The same goes when Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, a curse bestowed to them along with the knowledge they suddenly acquired upon eating the fruit. Boon suddenly thinks he owns everything in the wilderness as he defeated the most regarded powerful creature in it. He acquired a thinking of replacing Old Ben's mightiness. Thus the impossible possession he had will make him madder eventually.A repeat to the excerpt of Faulkner's description "Arcadian Biblical vision of a world which