When the Bear Came

When the Bear Came 

The story starts off when a bear comes to a town where, “nothing had happened in a long time” (225). Suddenly, there is news that a bear attacked two girls that were camping in the woods because they did not hang their food properly. The two girls are in critical condition in the local hospital.  The people in the town are on high alert and all want to kill the bear. One day, the narrator, Daniel, comes home and finds that the bear was in his house and destroyed some of his belongings. Daniel then tries to catch the bear.    

The story continues and talks about Daniel’s father, and how his father left the family. His father finds a girlfriend, and moves to a neighboring town. The father never really calls anymore. 

Then Daniel talks more about the bear. A bear is killed, and hung in town. However, this is not the bear that harmed the girls. Daniel then goes into the woods on his horse. He shoots his horse which and Daniel says to the horse, “I never liked you” (246). The bear then appears and starts eating the horse. Daniel then captures the bear with a rope, and is about to shoot and kill it, but decides not to. 

This story is especially rich in description. It was very well written, and contained much imagery and emotion. It was really interesting how the author tied in the story about the bear with the story about Daniel’s  family, and the father leaving. Many of the sentences are extremely powerful, as evidenced by the following sentence:  “The tent looked less like a tent and more like an organ excised by blunt scissors” (228).  Also really powerful was the ending. The reader anticipates that Daniel will kill the bear, because that is basically his mission from the beginning of the story. However, the story ends saying, “....I had found it, here in the peace of the dark woods, with only one slug and twenty feet of rope between me and absolution” (248). This more abstract and less predictable ending is more powerful and meaningful.