Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Monday, December 29, 2008

The Modern Problem of Flannery O'Connor and the Short Story #3: "Wildcat"

So Gabrul is an old black dude (blind) who can smell the wildcat coming. The wildcat kills cows, it kills another old dude off in another house. The men-folk keep going out hunting it, leaving Gabrul with the women-folk even though Gabrul tells them the cat's not in the woods, it's coming for the houses. Gabrul says to take him along so he can smell it out for them, but they leave him behind. Gabrul vividly imagines the cat coming after him, but after several nights it never does come. At one point he breaks a shelf trying to climb up onto it to hide - but it wasn't the wildcat scratching around, it was only bats.

Ta-da.

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