Literary Analysis: "The Dancing Bear"

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 stor

to do as he pleases, "Your son and daughter found this trespass worth the shame which here it suffers." Just as Dieter has a son who no longer wishes to speak to his father except on very rare occasions, so does Lear have daughters who find there is no room for this once powerful king in the castles that he has given to them. Dieter has been placed in the hands of Mrs. Hax, who was told by his son, "Mrs. Hax, I think it best if my father phones only on important matters, at your discretion" (Vanderhaeghe, 178). The two old men are therefore in much the same position with respect to their children. Neither is particularly loved or valued by his offspring, although in the case of Lear the reader recognizes that there is one daughter, Cordelia, who does genuinely care for and respect her father. Dieter is not so fortunate. He is truly abandoned by his son and left at the mercy of a woman whom he knows to be careless with "his plates, his feelings" (Vanderhaeghe, 179). Lear's royal prerogatives are also treated carelessly by the very daughters whose flattery gained them a disproportionate share of his kingdom. Once more, the reader is reminded that there are some very strong similarities in the situation of these two men.

Category: Literature - L