Then they would break camp and go home," (217). When Old Ben was finally taken down, the hunters who had spent so long in pursuing him then had nothing left to contribute to their legend. Their purpose was completed, much like the South's long-gone glory days. Most of those who made up their party had little other talents than to track and hunt. The stray Mastiff, Lion, who "inferred not only courage and all else that went to make up the will and desire to pursue and kill, but endurance, the will and desire to endure beyond all imaginable limits of flesh in order to overtake and slay" (Faulkner 227), would in no way fir into any other environment than the experience of the hunt. The dog was born to chase and kill, not exactly what you would describe as perfect assets to have in a house pet. However, Lion got the luxury of being slain doing what he was the best.

Unlike many of the hunters, the dog along with Sam Fathers, did not have to live to see themselves become obsolete. Rather, they died during the making of their legend, therefore preserving their dignity by not falling into the unknown after their purpose was complete. Sam Fathers, "the old man, the wild man not even one generation from the woods, childless, kinless, peopleless," (236) had met the same fate as Lion. The pair were two wild to turn face and live in a civilized world once the hunt was over. Faulkner needed these two to die to further his point in the end of an era. They both resembled Old Men in many ways, and with the dying of all three, there was no hope for their traditions to continue.

For those characters who were not so lucky to meet their end during the hunt succumbed to their increasing insignificance. The members of the hunting party who survived the actual hunt...

The character of Boon eventually goes mad at the very end of the story. In fact, his madness is what the piece leaves the reader to digest. He has digressed into less than human, being "evocative of all knowledge and an old weariness and of pariah-hood and of death," (314). Boon has no place in a more industrial society. His intimate relationship with the dog Lion shows how he works well within a natural and uncivilized setting, and not in normal modern day society. Eventually, for the characters that remain, the fairy tale of the old South slowly turns into a nightmare, "Don't you see? This whole land, the whole South, is cursed, and all of us who derive from it, whom it ever suckled, white and black both, lie under the curse?" (266).
The myth of the South inspired many stories, but was also the source of great misery and bitterness. The characters of Faulkner's "The Bear" have to deal with a changing world which eventually deemed their positions as obsolete. The continuous hunt gives the characters a purpose in the dying mystic of the Old South. As log as Old Ben is alive, they too have a reason to live. However, when the immortal bear dies, their legend dies along with it. They have no other purpose, which was the reason for their continual return to the forest every November before Old Ben's death. Once the hunt was over and the land was sold, the characters began to show their inability to incorporate within the more industrialized society. As long as the hunt continued, the characters were aloud to thrive in the world of their Shanri La. However, the end of the hunt signified the end of "the old world's worthless twilight," (247).

Works Cited

Faulkner, William. "The Bear." Go Down,…