A Little Thought on the First Section of the Bear By Zhong

    What caught my eye in the first seciton of the bear was the saliva that tasted like brass and how it was always associated with the bear. The child tasted it when he was dreaming about the bear and when he realised he was being watched by the bear. Faulkner seemed to be suggesting that this saliva was related to a natural fear. "Because he recognised now what he had smelled in the huddled dogs and tasted in his own saliva, recognised fear as a boy." And this fear, just like the existence of love and passion, was "in his heritage but not yet his patrimony." (I was also wondering about the difference between these two words, heritage and patrimony. I read this fear as something natural because I read the word heritage to be more of a natural kind than patrimony, but I could be very wrong.) What was confusing for me was how this saliva, this recognition of fear, led the child to think that he "will have to see [the bear]...will have to look at him." And he was thinking about doing so "without dread or even hope," even though he had just recognised the fear he had for the bear, not even seeing it. Why did this recognition of his fear for the bear lead him to such a determinate thought that he had to see it? And why did this recognition allow him to do so or think about doing so in a dreadless and hopeless (I'm especially confused by the "without dread") way? And if the fear he tasted and recognised was something inherited and perhaps natural, then what about this determination and attitude that came immediately after the fear? Was it something common, or was it something that only belonged to the child, or the hunters?

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshMay 12, 2021 at 9:25 AM

    Do you think it's true that it tastes of brass? It must come from a combination of fear-chemicals and bear-musk, which is pretty pungent. You're making me wonder what exactly the fear is, and what "dread" is -- perhaps not a fear of anything specific, but of something more primal. Isn't dread always a response to the unknown or unknowable? -- whereas one can have rational fear of rattlesnakes or spiders, for example.

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