The Fox is Gone

At the end of the documentary, the song played and the pilot replaced “the fox” with “Treadwell”.  After the song says “And the red fox (Treadwell) is gone”, the song says, “Well he cursed all the roads and the oil men. And he cursed the automobile. Said this is no place for an hombre like I am
In this new world of asphalt and steel. Then he'd look off some place in the distance
at something only he could see. He'd say all that's left now of the old days. Those damned old coyotes and me” These lyrics truly represent the life that Treadwell lived, disapproving of humans in general and trying to connect with and ‘become’ a wild animal. Not only does he name one of the foxes ‘Timmy’ after himself, but he also talks to the animals and treats the animals with the love, respect and consideration that we expect to be portrayed among different humans. Throughout the documentary, we are constantly reminded of Treadwell’s inability to survive happily in the human world and his disappointment in humanity. The song tells us that ‘he’d look off some place in the distance at something only he could see’ which really correlates to the joy he gets out of being with the bears and the passion he feels for protecting the bears no matter how dangerous it was. Some people could never understand what he was doing and others would never support him because they thought it was ‘stupid’. Connecting this to the discussion we had at the end of the class, we can see that Treadwell did what he did to make himself happy and to accomplish those goals that he set for himself in order to accomplish a great sense of self satisfaction.

When considering all the factors that we discussed, we identified that Treadwell actually did satisfy many of the needs we identified as crucial for self-satisfaction. Although he was not able to make many strong bonds with humans, he was able to make very great connections with the animals, which gave him purpose and encouragement. In addition, he was able to make himself feel accomplished by ‘protecting’ the bears for 12 summers. One thing I believe that Timothy was missing was the support and positive input from other people- something that adds to self-confidence and happiness. People quickly jumped to conclusions and judged his decisions negatively before considering what had led him to the bears in the first place and what other messages he was trying to send other than ‘the bears need help.’