Submitted by johnmcorrigan@g... on Sat, 2015-04-11 04:16
When adapting the first two manuscript sections of "The Bear" for this much shortened magazine version, Faulkner altered two aspects of the young protagonist. In the manuscript sections that he sent to Random House in September 1941, Ike McCaslin is a sixteen-year-old adolescent, who is taught to hunt by one of his father's former slaves, Sam Fathers. In the magazine version, Faulkner provided no name for his young protagonist and changed his age to ten.
The officer in command of the cavalry troop Rosa Millard encounters at the ford across the river is not named, but is clearly identified as "a heavy-built man with a red face" (54). We get a good idea why he looks choleric when he reads the Rosa's requisition order and swears.
