The Making of a Great White Hunter

The big idea in the discourse. The big idea is that “man” often has a very different idea about the nature of language, the reality of nature and the truth of life than “beast.” Rabinowitz presents this idea in a very profound and well-informed way.

HE (Man and his kind) thinks that truth is defined by the spoken word. From this truth, language either is, or ought to be
• defined by consonants
• composed of sentences
• limited to humans and
• discontinuous in experience.

THEY (Alan and the animals) sense that language, reality and truth are NOT defined by the spoken word and in fact are not even speakable. From this understanding, language either is or ought to be
• defined by vowel tones
• composed of discourse
• unlimited by culture amd
• completely continuous in experience.

Phonetic description: The reader sets the tone for the story at the same time he defines his telling world in the opening statement, “I was five years old.” /ɑɪ wɑʒ fɑɪv yiaʒ ɑʊld/ The voice draws upon the listener to join the world of the child. Part of this is a definite lengthening of the vowel sounds /ɑɪ/in “I” and “five.” The same sentence slides down in a way that signals a time for empathy. Sliding up this sentence might have asked for active involvement, but sliding down appeals for reflection and contemplation. By the time the initial appeal in /ɑɪ wɑʒ fɑɪv yiaʒ ɑʊld/ is complete, we are on our way in the world of the child and ready to accept all the problems that come from being young in an adult world. This leads, for me, to the most involving moment which is when Alan finds him caught between the authentic world of animals and the authoritative one of humans.

Overall , the affect of the voice is of the bleeding heart, one who tends to plead for others to feel his pain. Success using this kind of voice depends primarily on compelling content which certainly exists in the tale of “Man and Beast.”

For some twisted reason, I can’t help but think of this as a typical “great white hunter” story (ala Tarzan, Lone Ranger, Kevin Costner, Teddy Roosevelt). Great white hunter stories usually have some well-educated and technically advanced savior who goes into the wild and saves the day for the natives who are incapable of helping themselves. In this case, we a nice city boy who goes to UTK long enough to learn how to deal effectively in the jungle. To save the day, he uses an entirely modern argument—that one saves the animals by demonstrating economic benefit. All this may sound cynical but it is more skeptical that providing economic benefit ever really saves the day for anybody involved. The story begs this point. The bleeding heart voice generates contempt the moment it runs out of compelling content and expressions like “tree hugger” begin to signify tales told more for political than personal reasons—not from the heart at all.

The most involving moment. The moment that he begins to talk to the panther, the father comes over to challenge, “What are you doing?” This is a double layering of conflicted interest for the boy: not only does discourse with the panther come to an end, rapport with the father stops cold. This double dose of conflict delivers the most heated and involving moment. At this moment, the listener, tends to side with boy and panther against father and mankind. At this moment, we tend to empathize with the storyteller’s world and his sense of how language works within that world.


Map of the discourse. Key discursive events in the story include the following: 1. Enter the world of the child on the edge of discourse with animals. 2. Suspend potential discourse and enter the world of humans. 3. Child becomes man by learning to compete and become competitive in his world. 4. Young man reenters the world of animals and engages them in discourse. 5. Young man rejoins the human world by using his voice to compete for influence that allow him to save the world of animals. 6. He becomes savior of the animals by using articulate speech in their behalf.