Faulkner's entire body of work hinges on Ike. Ike is the fulcrum around which tragedy becomes comedy.
Ike is the epic hero in the epic that is Faulkner's body of work, and as with all epic heros Ike is flawed.
When Ike goes into the woods to find the bear he is making the hero's descent into the underworld. Just like Achilles, just like Odysseus. And, like the other heros before him, he leaves his earthly possesions behind.
One cannot meet the gods in this, time and place. The metaphysical is where the gods live and there is no time and place. And the bear is a god. He is one of the old gods.
When Ike comes out of the woods, he is changed. Faulkner is changed, Yoknapatawpha is changed.
The liminal experience Ike has when meeting the bear is the threshold between tragedy and comedy in Faulkner's body of work.
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