Literary Analysis Essay on The Blue Fox: A Naturalistic Novel by Sjon

Introduction

The 'Blue Fox Novel' by the author Sjon has primarily been written from the naturalistic point of view, where most of its elements represent the environmental and nature at its best. It can be observed in its plot summary, where it begins with the presentation of its setting, that it took place in the year 1883 (Sjon & Cribb, 4). In such a case, it opens with a priest who is hunting a blue fox. It is then followed by a presentation of the days that led to the development of the hunting game by the priest. There is a herbalist who buries a woman who was deceased recently with Down syndrome. The man rescued the woman from a wrecked ship. The novel further details on their life together, where the woman had been the man's helper for quite a long time (Sjon & Cribb, 24). It happened to be a herbalist, with a caring spirit as opposed to the priest who failed to show care for the woman, thus an irony to his Christianity nature. The priest manages to shoot and kill the blue fox that is being hunted, with the sound from the rifle he uses, causing an avalanche.

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The priest gets trapped underneath the snow/glacial cave and becomes insane. The fox then comes back to life and starts arguing with the priest on the invention of electricity. The priest then kills it for the second time, and goes on to skin the fox and wears the fur. He then transforms into a blue fox like the one it had killed. The book then ends with the letter from the herbalist to the priest, which explains that the girl who had died of Down syndrome was his daughter sold to slavery a very long time ago, and who priest had refused to attend his church service. The herbalist could then rescue her to be her helper. Thus, it can be observed that the book largely explores on the contents of environment, involving the natural occurrences of snow, avalanche, the genetic disorder of Down syndrome, the blue fox, the insanity happening in the priest, alongside the resurrection of the blue fox to condemn the wrongdoings of the priest (Sjon & Cribb, 12). They are well explored in Ecocriticism, in the subsequent paragraphs.

First, there is an aspect of the blue fox being hunted by the priest in the beginning sections of the novel. In this case, the priest is committed to killing the blue fox by shooting (SJON, 18). It can be established that the sole aim of the priest hunting down the blue fox was to sell it to earn a living. In such a case, the blue fox is a gift of nature, an animal that exists in the environment. It can be established that the priest has seen its value, as documented in the novel. The priest tries to kill the fox by all means, but appears evasive, until the last time when it is killed. In the literature at hand, the fox serves to represent the beauty around humanity, where they also try to maintain their survival for the ecosystem to remain balanced and stay away from the scorching effects of the human beings that live in the same environments. Such is witnessed in the hard nature of the priest to kill the blue fox. Both of them appear to yearn for their rights, where the priest tries to get the fox dead for further uses, and the fox yearn for more life through escaping. Thus, the beautiful balance of the composition of nature is well illustrated in the novel, using the priest and the fox.

As the game of the priest and the blue fox continues, finally, the fox is killed through shooting by the priest. In such a scenario, it has been used in the novel to represent the winning nature of the most intelligent animal in the universe, a human being. However, of the fact that the priest won, nature responded by inflicting other tormenting acts to him. From the sound of the shooting, there occurs a semblance of earth tremor in Iceland, where the ice blocks fall on the priest, hence physically barring him from any movements, alongside inflicting somebody pains on him (SJON, 24). Such shows much on nature, as reflected in the happenings in the novel. It can get interpreted to mean that the natural environment that surrounds human beings is in harmony with each other and values coexistence for the benefit of harbouring a perpetually alive ecosystem. Both the blue fox and snow blocks are the components of nature, and they deserve respect for existence and peace as humans do. Since the priest took an initiative of harming the blue fox, nature responded by having him physically blocked, barred, and harmed by the ice blocks. In essence, both the parties, human and natural environments, got involved, and the man was to some extent, devastated for being harmed by nature in return.

From the happenings between the priest, the fox, and the ice blocks, there has been the relay of the message of the need to care for any object in the environment to receive the same favour in return. Such a part of the novel seems to relay a message of warning to humanity, that whatever you do to others will be done unto Such a part of novel seem to relay a message of warning to the humanity, that whatever you do to others will be done unto you. The components of the natural environment of people, the blue fox and the ice blocks, have been considered having the rights of existence, hence a semblance of moralization, such that anything wrong done to them will see them revenging in equal measure, even though immortal. When the priest harmed the blue fox, the avalanche hit him, and he became mad in the process, a representation of the dues of wrongdoings he had done to nature.

There is also an instance where, when the avalanche had made the priest mad, the killed blue fox came back to life (SJON, 26). The blue fox proceeds to argue with the man on the invention of electricity, which could have added to the knowledge of the creation of the shooting machine used in its killing. In such a case, the blue fox represents the nature in anger humans are spearheading the innovations aimed at bringing about devastating impacts in their coexistence. It can also be deciphered that the invention of such electricity, which the fox is complaining about, has caused all the disappointments witnessed in the novel, where the fox had been shot dead and the sound causing the avalanche to harm the priest physically. However, the priest is not willing to relent, and goes on to kill the blue fox for the second time, and goes on to skin it and wear the skin. The priest now turns to be a fox, a consequence of harming nature. Such an action portrays, further, how nature can be quite unforgiving, such that it gives back to human beings what they do to it in their daily activities. It can thus, be observed that literature acts as a reflection of the happenings in society.

The works of nature have also been well brought out through the final health of the priest as well as that of his abandoned daughter, Abba. It can be established that Abba is a priest's daughter who had Down syndrome (Sjon & Cribb, 16). The priest had his church and believed in Christianity. In such a case, it had been understood that any Christian setting upheld moral values to the members of the society who subscribed to them. The priest, therefore, was expected to be fully submissive to the demands of his Christianity nature. However, he went against the requirements of his religion. It turned out that because of the Down syndrome sickness that had befallen his daughter, he took to mistreating her by forcing her not to attend his church. He also went to the extent of selling her off to slavery, where she later got saved by a herbalist from the shipwreck. Concerning the dues of nature reflected in the novel, it turned out that the priest was later physically harmed by an avalanche, which also went a long way to making him mad. In such a scenario, the literature serves to appreciate in literary context the happenings in the society, where people with detest stature to the lesser beings like the priest are required to humble themselves to avoid being rewarded adversely by nature.

As the nature of the mental disorder that befell Abba continued to be elaborated in the novel, there is the fact that disease is a natural occurrence in the human environment, and has been incorporated in the literature to reflect the ideal society with all sets of components, including the disease that is never a welcome respite for anybody. The sick Abba could have also been used in the novel to bring about the relationships of relatives with some challenges in their lives. The fact that the careless father, the priest, was the parent of the abandoned Abba speaks volumes concerning human nature and how they relate in the presence of the calamities that are beyond their levels of management. In such a scenario, the disease that affected Abba since childhood has been used to show how untrustworthy that even one's relatives can during hard times, with the unrelated people being entirely caring about the expected closest relatives. Thus the natural occurrence in the human environment, the Down syndrome in Abba, has been used in the literature to reflect the happenings in the society full of pretense. The disease has also been used to pass the message to humanity. In such a case, there existed two individuals, the priest and the herbalist. Having been sold by her father to sex slavery, Abba is later rescued by the herbalist, who, despite her sickly situation makes her his assistance in many activities, and takes care of her (SJON, 14). On the other hand, his biological father was careless and had deemed it better to sell her off. As a tool of reflection, it serves to show that in any given society, one can be abandoned by the highly expected souls and that humans have to always care for one another irrespective of the blood ties: whether present or not: for the benefit of all. In the end, the herbalist is seen burying Abba, with her father unaware. It also serves to pass the message of value for one another, as the herbalist saw Abba having the value to help him irrespective of the condition she was.

Works Cited

SJON, . (2019). BLUE FOX. S.l.: SCEPTRE.

Sjon, ., & Cribb, V. (2012). The Blue Fox. New York: Saqi.