My Essays

Submitted By alexander942
Words: 1119
Pages: 5

Kieara Alexander
Ms. Johnson
ENC 1102
February 7, 2013
Antlers
Antlers is about a valley who celebrates Halloween to bring them closer to one another. Everyone who lives in the valley notice that they’re there because of the silence. “It is eternity up here” they say (Bass, 269). They all have they’re reasons for being in the quiet valley. Some may be running from the law or just don’t enjoy the city life as much but mainly people like it because of that wildness feeling they get. When they all come to the Halloween party there’s no need of them dressing up in costume because they know one another like a book. If it’s not direct contact then when they hear each other through talking they still figure out who voice it belongs to. Another reason why they don’t dress up in costume is because they would strap horns onto their heads. They would get these horns from moose, deer or even a high-throw back of an elk and wear them all night and get very drunk to have a good time. Even the sober people of the valley would use this one day out the year celebrating and getting drunk. Then finally around 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. at the most, everyone will go home through all the snow that had fallen throughout the night. “We believe in the small place, this valley. Many of us have come here from other places and have been running all our lives from other things, and I think that everyone who is up here has decided not to run anymore” (Bass, 270). Now throughout the story there’s a woman named Suzie being mentioned a lot. Suzie has pretty much made her way with almost every man in the valley. She do it because she wants to not to please any of the men in the valley. She’s pretty much ran through and broke every man in the valley heart except for Randy. Why? Well, because he’s a bow hunter-he uses a bow and aluminum arrows with a spindle of razor blades to make his kill with the wild animals in the valley-making Suzie not be attractive to him at all. She actually disapproves of this activity and wants everyone else to oppose to this idea. She didn’t like any type of hunting but bowhunting was the worse to her. She feels like animals that live in the wild should be able to do just that live in the wild, free. She doesn’t like the fact that Randy enjoys this type of activity, an activity where animals die of a long and painful death. The narrator on the other hand wants to defend Randy on his hunting antics but he too thinks that bowhunting is wrong on so many levels. Here we have two people who oppose to the idea of bowhunting as wrong, hurtful and just plain low down. In the story, Suzie started a petition in the valley to pretty much ban bowhunting. “We just couldn’t sign Suzie’s petition. Not even Davey could sign it” (Bass, 273). Everyone else well majority were the men of the valley just didn’t think signing the petition was such a good idea because maybe they felt like that was a little over the top because hunting is hunting. Suzie’s current boyfriend Davey was trying to explain to her that either way you get the meat of an animal and pray on it afterward everything is just fine. But regardless Suzie felt that Randy was “trying to prove his manhood” and that “he’s dangerous” (Bass, 273). The narrator himself went bowhunting with Randy once just to see what really goes on with this activity. Of course he got his bow and arrow ready and shot it at a big elk. When they caught up with the dying elk, Randy made a confession to the narrator. He basically told him that he doesn’t know the real reason behind why he do it. He actually feels bad every time he does something like this to animals but it’s just a habit that he have to keep up. Suzie asks “What do you think it must feel like, what do you think it must feel like to run around with an arrow in your heart knowing you’re going to die for it?” (Bass, 274). This argument happens to get a bit confusing because people are starting