Williamson 1 Betsalel Williamson ENG 115-BC41 Ms.

Keltz Thursday, August 9, 2012

Symbolism in Her First Elk

The story of Her First Elk by Rick Bass is a story of symbolism rather than plot and character. During the first read through the slow style pulls the reader in. A young woman Jyl who is just out of college goes to woods to hunt elk. Jyl shoots elk and elk then chases it off into the woods. She crosses unknowingly into private property and meets two brothers. Ralph and Bruce are older and live away from civilization. They see Jyl is unprepared for the death of this elk and offer her help in preparing it. If it were truly meant to be a character driven story like Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown, the focus of the story would have been centered around Jyl instead of the death of the elk. By focusing the development around her, the climax is in the eighth paragraph when she kills the elk. Not only is eight paragraphs not enough space to develop a character in a short story, but that leaves over seventy paragraphs of falling action! After additional read throughs I started catching on to the symbolism representative of a person whose is confronting death. The story is not about the first elk shot, but a young persons journey losing a loved one (the death of the elk mirrors the loss of her father). Through Her First Elk Bass talks about how one learns to deal with the loss of life, the healing process, and finally how to move on. The story lends enough allusions to the grief process to comfortably switch focus from the girl to the elks metamorphic errancy (par. 67). By switching focus from Jyl to the death of the elk the story becomes better proportioned as the climax happens when Jyl comes to the revelation that [t]hat elk would not be coming back, and her father would not be coming back (par. 75). Although there were many symbols in this essay there were three three symbols that I will focus on. They are the elk, the hunter, and the religious overtones.

Williamson 2 The elk reenforced the symbolism of the struggles that one goes through when dealing with the loss of a loved one. The way that it can run for miles with his heart in tatters, ... as if on magic or spirit, rather than ... ventricles and aortas; that if pushed, a bull could run for months (par. 13) is clearly an allusion to a person who is not given the time to cope can go on acting normal, but still have a heart in tatters that needs mending. As with her fathers death, Jyl is unprepared for death of the Elk. From recognizing the boundaries of where it is and isnt legal to hunt, to her dangerously loaded gun, to thinking she could skin and prepare the elk with just her pocket knife, it is clear Jyl needs a guide. She needs help dealing with this loss from someone who has dealt with loss before.

Jyl meets her guides in the form of two brothers Ralph and Bruce. They teach her about the process of cleaning the elk. It is clearly a task not meant for the lone hunter, but is still the work that needed doing (par. 55). The hunter can symbolize two ideas. Firstly and specific to the story, a hunter is a person who has lost someone. Her father was a hunter (single father) the two men were hunters (no parents) and she too becomes a hunter (loss of her father and the new acquaintances) at the end of the story. Secondly, that it takes someone who has lost a loved one to relate and connect with others who have lost. All of Jyls time spent in college did not prepare her for loss. Bruce and Ralph are disconnected from the world and it is they who know how to prepare the elk and take care of themselves.

Further enhancing the symbolic tone of the short story there are religious overtones of how dealing with death can be a religious experience. The story has definite allusions to Christianity. There is a repeated mention of three (par. 1, 40, 63, 71), the reference to spreading their arms out wide as if on a crucifix (par. 71) and explicitly Oh Christ, the younger man said. (par. 33). The story mentions that [to] Jyl it looked like nothing less than a deification: and again, as a hunter, someone learning to deal with the loss, she found this fitting (par. 59). Throughout her journey she is in denial of her struggle concerning the loss of her father. Jyl refers to three mythic acts. Comparing to sex, flight, and hunting to the Judeo-Christian Bible it mentions those three acts in this order: sex (Gen. 1:28), death (Gen. 2:17) (self preservation, i.e. dont eat from the tree of knowledge or you will die) and then hunting (Gen. 9:1-3).

Williamson 3 At this point in the story she brushes off the importance of death calling it flight. Instead, Jyl only recognizes the loss of life regarding the elk. In the end, she learns to move on as Jyl transitions from being a young woman (par. 1) to a grown woman (par. 77). She comes to accept death in realizing that each day she moves farther away from him, she is also moving closer to him (par. 78).

Through these and other symbols Rick Bass educates his audience about an experience that is both tragic and part of life. This story is larger than Jyls first hunting trip. Most people are unprepared and when left to themselves can follow a dangerous vector akin to a hunter running with a loaded gun. Losing a loved one is no simple matter. By acknowledging the loss and understanding that there is a circle of life one can make peace with the fact that their loved one has moved on from this world.

Williamson 4 Works Cited Bass, Rick. Her First Elk. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2012. 516-25. Print. The Bible