Guy Vanderhaeghe (171) describes in "The Dancing Bear" an old man who "lay sleeping on the taut red rubber sheet as if he were some specimen mounted and pinned there to dry." With this introduction, the theme of the story is established via figurative language which likens the elderly man to some insect that has been captured, killed, and mounted for display. In this essay, a number of quotations from the short story will be analyzed and linked to the central theme of the story, which focuses on the impotence of the older man whose body no longer serves him and who is very much at the mercy of others, including an uninvolved son and a housekeeper who treats him with unrelieved contempt. In this, he is like William Shakespeare's King Lear who is described as,
the best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then we must look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long engraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them (Shakespeare, 850).
Briefly, Vanderhaeghe's story moves from the beginning of what seems to be a fairly typical day in the life of Dieter Bethge, who is locked in a battle of wills with his petty and cruel housekeeper/caretaker, Mrs. Hax. Dieter is frail physically and given to moments in which his mental functions are erratic or even disordered. Nevertheless, he knows himself to be worthy of respect, which he does not receive from Mrs. Hax. As the story progresses, a triggered memory of a trained dancing bear from his childhood leads Dieter to rebel against Mrs. Hax and his situation. The story culminates in Dieter's death due to a stroke.
A second significant statement made by Vanderhaeghe (173) that identifies the nature of this elderly man is attributed to his housekeeper, Mrs. Hax, "It was going to be one of those days. What went on in the old bastard's head if anything? What made him so peculiar, so dif...