“Because he recognised now what he had smelled in the huddled dogs and tasted in his own saliva, recognised fear as a boy, a youth, recognizes the existence of love and passion and experience which is his heritage but not yet his patrimony, from entering by chance the presence or perhaps merely the bedroom of a woman who has loved and been loved by many men. So I will have to see him, he thought, without dread or even hope. I will have to look at him.”
Originally I had thought to focus on Faulkner’s use of descriptive words in The Bear, of which there are many, since I spent all night last night writing about descriptive words in poetry. But then, this passage caught my attention, and stuck with me. The emotion he seems to be experiencing me, reminds me of the emotions we experience when we as Christians think about meeting God. It seems that he is yearning to see the bear, even if he isn’t going to kill it. It’s almost an obsession with seeing the majesty of the creature.
It’s the same with us and God. We long to see God, and yet we fear Him because His majesty is more than we can comprehend. Yet, like and unlike the boy, when we think about seeing God there is no dread, but there is hope. We hope for something we know nothing about, we hope to see our creator. The boy made the decision that he HAD to see the bear, but there was no assurance he would. We as Christians know that we WILL see God one day since we have accepted the gift He gave us by sending His Son to die for us.
I realize that this is probably not what Faulkner was trying to get at with that passage, but these are the thoughts that popped into my head when I read the passage, and they refused to leave me alone. I’m looking forward to discussing this tomorrow, because this is a very intriguing story that will be fun to delve into.
Until next time,
~Meghan
P.S. I commented on Will’s post “Control”
That's a really interesting take on it. I can see the comparison to an extent and I quite like it. I agree that I don't necessarily think that's what Faulkner was getting at, but I also think the beauty of literature is that it can bring out these moments where we can see God in what we're reading. Really we can see a lot of different things about ourselves and our lives through the literature we read, not just God. There's really just so many possibilities that reading can help bring out. If that makes sense.
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