Boon The Bear

In the short story “The Bear” William Faulkner writes a story including many different characters during several life changing experiences. Faulkner demonstrated how one’s success and failure can drive one to mistake their rightful place and he shows this theme by using the developing characteristics of Boon throughout the story. At the end of the short story, Boons unsteady life leads the developing world to exclude him due to his faulty success ().

To demonstrate how success and failure in an individual 's life can steer them to misinterpret their place in the world, Faulkner uses Boon’s strong bond with Lion as an example. To begin with, Boon had high expectations of the fierce dog named Lion, for when asked about him, he stated how “he’s

Another way to exemplify how one can end up lost over certain aspects due to spasmodic ups and downs in life Faulkner used Boon’s fruitless psyche as a prime model. Such as throughout Boons life he was “never been known to hit anything” because he was a simple “plebeian” to Sam Fathers who rightfully “was the chief”. As a result, when out hunting for the mystical bear in the woods every year “he shot at the bear five times with his pump gun touching nothing” completely failing to fulfill one simple task. Later on in the short story, Boon along with Ike made a trip to the city where Boon’s “muddy boots and stained khaki” seemed to stand out as if “he should have never brought it out of the woods”. Boons life was consumed with everything regarding the woods yet he did not fit in there, nor in the big advancing real world. For example, as soon as they stepped into the city atmosphere Boon “coughed for something less than a minute” and proceeded to complain about a non-existent cold. Sadly, Boon not only failed to become a true hunter but also a normal civilian. In addition, Boon could not fully function in the real world even when Ike reminded him how he “promised Major” to not consume a single drop of alcohol till they got “back to camp”. Therefore, it came to no surprise, how his desperateness leads him to want to “get the hell out” of there as soon as their business was complete. In that case, all of Boons actions pointed to being a complete mess inside and out because he