21 pages • 42 minutes read
Alden NowlanThe Bull Moose
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Bull Moose
The subject of the poem, the bull moose symbolizes nature's purity and power. Wild and uninhibited as the poem begins, the moose seems tired and stymied when he collides with the so-called civilized world. This symbolizes nature’s defeat by the forces of materialism and human greed. As the moose moves through his habitat, the poem describes the wilderness in vivid detail, using strong imagery such as the “purple mist of trees on the mountain” (Line 1). However, once the moose reaches the pasture, the natural imagery takes a backseat, and the poem focuses on the moose’s isolation and treatment by humans. This symbolizes that the world of the wild is holistic and harmonious, with animal and landscape in sync with one another.
The human world, however, is fractured: Humans are adversarial to their habitat. The cruelty of the young men towards the moose, “pry[ing] open his jaw with bottles” (Line 21), inverts popularly held notions about civilized and savage. Here, it is the young men who symbolize beasts, while the gentle moose represents civility. Thus, the moose challenges the human sense of superiority.
The reader may ask is that if the moose represents the divine power of nature, as well as that of God (Jesus), why does he suffer in the poem? The answer is that the moose doesn’t represent an all-powerful god in the scriptural or sacred sense, but God as a presence uncorrupted—pure, and powerful like nature. When such a god meets the corrupt human world, he chooses to die rather than live on their terms. Thus, the bull moose also symbolizes a refusal to submit to materialist values and moral decay.
The Cattle and the Collie
Like the moose, the cattle are animals, but they represent tamed, domesticated animals, who have learned to live within the confines of the pasture. They symbolize once-individualistic people whom society has broken to comply with their norms, or people who are simply too passive to resist evil. In the poem’s Christian symbolism, the cattle represent those who turned their back on Jesus, or his disciple Peter who denied knowing Jesus so he wouldn’t be arrested. If one digs deeper beyond the scriptural importance of the story, the people and Peter represent individuals who lose their nerve in the fight for truth. Such people turn into a passive or voyeuristic audience, as the cattle do, moving from the moose and waiting for something to happen.
The “tolerant collie” (Line 14) is a second important animal symbol in the poem. The descriptor “tolerant” shows the collie has learned how to tolerate the human condition. There is also a reference to an ancient, gelded bull moose and an ox—symbols of nature mutilated, emasculated, and broken. The gelded bull moose represents crushed divinity: Once, he too may have been godlike, but was desecrated to become a beast of burden.
The Townspeople
The townspeople represent humanity at its mediocre worst. Interestingly, they do not commit acts of unspeakable evil, nor are they described as criminals or sociopaths. It is in their thoughtless insensitivity that they manifest sin. The poem shows that evil is not something which exists in a few twisted individuals or in a Satan-like arch enemy, but is present in regular people. It is the insensitive actions of humans in daily life that advances evil in the world at large. In the poem, this evil takes the form of the bull moose's treatment. The narrator gives specific details about the interaction of the different townspeople with the moose, each showing a varied aspect of human behavior. The children torment the moose with “alder switches” (Line 13), showing that they have been alienated from their own innocence and purity. “The woman” (Line 14) wonders if the moose has escaped from a cattle fair or an exhibition, as if he is an anomaly in the landscape.
