He is a very methodic speaker with a slow, smooth rate of speech. Nothing is hurried or rushed. You can tell he is thinking about the words he is going to say and has learned how to avoid stuttering. He over enunciates his words and makes sure his listeners understand his words. I noticed he extends his "s" sounds and draws out the s, especially when it is the last letter of a word.
I like the moment at the end of the story when he is staring down the jaguar. First of all, that would be a very scary moment as even he admitted he knew it could kill him at any moment. But this was a moment that connected him back to his childhood, taking him back to his childhood days. He identifies with his scariest moment as a child, suddenly coming face to face with the fear and ridicule he lived with. When he told the jaguar it's all going to be OK, he let go of that fear. Him telling the jaguar it would OK and that he was their to protect the animal was also him telling himself, it would be OK. He could move on and let go of his past.
We start the story at the zoo, an intimate moment for a child and an animal. It's obvious there is a connection between the two. He then explains the reason for the connection with wild animals. He took use through his childhood and explains his battle with stuttering and trying to overcome it. The only place he could speak was with animals. He then explains how he overcame his stuttering when his parents sent him away to school. He returns to the animals and explains his educational pursuit of studying animals turning his childhood connection into a lifelong pursuit. His supervisor gave him the opportunity to go to Belize and study jaguars. He took off and began his study only to realize the jaguars weren't protected. Thus something needed to be done. Therefore he faced his fear and went to the highest authority in Belize trying to establish a haven for the animals which he did successfully. Finally, he is out in the field and comes face to face with a jaguar and is able to let go of the fear of the jaguar and also let go of his past.
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Thank you CT! A good start for our consideration of this particular story and discourse in general. Notice how the story is contained in the envelope of the jaguar experience; the teller begins with the zoo episode and concludes with the jungle episode. These provide a boundary or "bookend" for containing all the rest of his experience.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the limits of language? What about the ineffable quality of man/nature encounters? How do words take us to the edge of what words can convey and hint at something unsayable?
Noticed the sibilance, too. Wonder what it means? It does mean something, but what?
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