The entirety of Go Down, Moses thus far has dealt with the changing relationships amongst the characters and the impact those changes have on the overall story. However, in this most recent story, The Bear, the most significant changes are emphasized. These are, as stated on the back cover of the book, the changing relationships between man and man and between man and nature. Through the annual hunting trips, the reader see’s Isaac McCaslin mature into a man and with him his views on the world that surrounds him. In chapter one of The Bear, Isaac first eludes to a rift between man and nature, “It was as if the boy had already divined what his senses and intellect hand not encompassed yet: that doomed wilderness whose edges were being constantly and punily gnawed at by men with plows and axes who feared it because it was wilderness…” (183). This divide is further illustrated by Boon and Isaac’s arrival in Memphis. Although their disheveled appearance does not spark much attention in the small town of Hoke, they seem extremely out of place in urban Memphis- “They emerged from the warm caboose in their hunting clothes, the muddy boots and stained khaki and Boon’s blue unshaven jowls. But that was all right. Hoke’s sawmill and commissary and two stores and a loading-chute on a sidetrack from the main line, and all the men in it wore boots and khaki too…..But in Memphis it was not all right. It was if the high buildings and the hard pavements, the fine carriages and the horse cars and the men in starched collars and neckties made their boots and khaki look a little rougher and a little muddier…” (218-219). I read these passages originally with the idea that they supported the idea of the Old South vs. the New South, but when I read Isaac and Cass’s conversation from page 243 through 246, I began to wonder if in fact it was something deeper than industrialization. Were you surprised by Cass’s reaction? Do you think that the battle over the land has to do with industrialization alone, or is it something more?
Sunday, February 5, 2012
The Relationship Between Man and Nature
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I think that these conversations really do connect the two themes of man versus man as well as man versus nature. Of course, industrialism rears its head into the situation no matter what story we are reading, but it is most evident in The Bear. One of the most significant parts of the story is when Isaac finds Old Ben once he gets rid of his industrialist objects. Once he submits himself to the immortal wilderness, he finds what he is looking for. This builds up to Isaac's belief that the land is "cursed and tainted" and belongs to no man, which is why he does not wish to take the land. This belief is so rooted in the foundations of his belief system that it is not something you would expect him to change, even for Cass. The two men arguing over the fate of land, something which has no representation other than a man's view, combines the major themes of the story.
ReplyDeleteI understand Cass' reaction, but it seems as though he cannot see the whole situation clearly. I disagree that a developing relationship of man against man is very evident or relavant in these passages, but I agree with both Anna and Mesa that the theme of man versus nature is not only apparent but essencial to Go Down, Moses and particularly The Bear. The idea of the wilderness being "gnawed at by men" (183) shows an important shift in the South away from the ideals of the Chickasaw chiefs and Sam Fathers who connected with the natural world and the honor of the hunt towards the industrial world. Isaac is able to commune with the wilderness when he relinquishes the objects such as the gun, watch and compass, and "the wilderness closed behind his entrance as it had opened momentarily to accept him' (185) and he goes to "no fixed path the wagon followed" (185). The non-existence of a path shows how wilderness and industrialism cannot work together, but one must outlasts the other. In part five of The Bear, the wood chopping machine seems to be an ill omen signaling that the doom of the wilderness is near, however, the very end with Boon destroying his gun suggests that, in some way, people might be coming to their senses and realizing the importance of the natural world. The lion and the bear are representatives of the 'old' South and the wilderness Sam does not "want to tame" (205), but instead allows them to stay untainted by man and industrialism. I think that the battle over the land has to do mostly with the industrialism I've sighted but also with the societal shifts happening in the South.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree with Nellie that the relationship between man and man is not as present as the relationship between man and nature. However, I don't find it to be as black and white (sorry) as "Man and Man" but more as "Old people to New People", or "Old South to New South". I think the battle over land that Mesa mentioned is industrial, but in both senses of the word that we have discussed: literally industrial greed, but also the New South emerging and taking away the wilderness as we know it or have known it throughout The Bear. The final chapter of The Bear focuses not only on Isaac's return to the woods, but of his return to his old hunting partners Major de Spain and Boon Hogganbeck. As mentioned in class, Boon has become the one who destroys the wilderness that Isaac has known, while Major de Spain refuses to return to the woods because he didn't want to see his wild being tamed by the New South (page 302). The Major is very much a personification of the Old South and its values and traditions, and this is why I think we have some disagreement over the types of relationships presented: Faulkner blurs the lines between people and ideas by subtly enforcing our perception of one as the other.
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