Fear. It often unleashes the primitive side of man. Fear of the unknown has been engraved into mankind and ignorance causes one to react savagely. In Alden Nowlan’s “The Bull Moose”, the townspeople abuse the bull moose who staggers into their pasture, illuminating the theme of incomprehension and apprehension causing prejudice. The bull moose wanders in “lurching” (2) and “stumbling” (3); such diction represents the lack of sanctuary for victims of bigotry and inequality. Nowlan uses “too tired to turn” (6) to limn being exhausted from having gone through many trials. However, despite the wrongdoings that have fallen upon the bull moose, the townspeople still dare to “stroke his tick-ravaged flanks” (20) which symbolises the disrespect of …show more content…
The cap of sharp thistles that the girl places on the bull moose’s head alludes to the mocking of Christ before His crucifixion; the people scorn the suppressed minorities as the Jews scorned Jesus Christ. After all, discrimination often stems from the lack of knowledge. As the bull moose is compared to a “blood god” (9), the simile compares man’s ignorance of those who they discriminate to man’s lack of understanding of higher beings, such as a god. Even a person who seems to be wise and all knowing, such as the old parish man, juxtaposes the bull moose he sees with his biased memory of an enslaved bull moose; recalling the negative and believing that all bull moose are the same enforces false stereotypes and continues to see bull moose as inferior and tamed. This is simply because of the townspeople’s lack of exposure. A woman who asks if the bull moose had escaped from a Fair; a Fair is where unusual, weird, and unknown things can be seen, making it a metaphor about how the prejudiced are not knowledgeable about those who they are biased