Timothy Treadwell's initiative to save the bears, while admirable, somewhat undermined his purpose.  In my philosophy class, we have been talking a lot about the potential consciousness and rationality of beings other than humans (in this case, bears).  A belief in conscious and self-aware thought would lead to a higher moral standing and therefore greater responsibility on our part to help (or at least avoid hurting) these creatures.  Treadwell believed that the bears would never hurt him - he was a part of their community and he believed that they understood that he was there to help.  The fact that, in the end, he and his girlfriend were killed and partially eaten by a bear somewhat undermines this idea that bears have understanding and conscious/rational thought.

What a difference an open-ended challenge can make. Upon the invitation to challenge our instructions, every student rethought how to approach their argument. Did we agree with what we had been told to do? Or, on a greater scale, did we even understand what we were told to do? When we were no longer certain that what we had done was “true,” I know I struggled with putting together what the two books have in common. We assume the connections we make are valid until we have to question whether or not they hold anything in common but the font between their covers.

The discourse forced out by questioning an assignment far exceeds that of a closed prompt. In the French course in which I am currently enrolled, the writing and discourse is strictly controlled and as a result the intellectual aspect is seriously lacking. While our outlines were malleable and open, every part of our papers are predetermined and dictated, starting immediately at the outline. As a result, everyone wrote identical papers on nearly identical topics. The restrictions effectively asphyxiated any novel ideas and inspired cyclical text without thought. I guess seeing what open-ended freedom can unleash makes it a lot harder to think within the confines of a ridged design.

Another Misconceived Reality

In the NPR piece as well as his own videos, Timothy Treadwell appears as having created his own perception of reality distant from the one perceived by most. Treadwell believes the Grizzly Bears are his comrades and that they trust him, yet as most people know Grizzlies are the most violent bears in North America. He sets out to study these bears and live among them for many years. To a rational civilian this would seem outlandish, but to Timothy Treadwell, this is the only reality he can thrive in. According to his Wikipedia page, he attributes his recovery from alcohol and heroine addictions entirely to the bears. The bears cloud his judgement and become his obsession until he is unable to live without them. Ultimately he is killed by the one thing that helps him escape from reality, the bears.

Hmmm... Where have I heard this before. Oh year Cat's Cradle, The Things They Carried, and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In all three narratives, people attempt to escape from their dismal depressing realities through religion, fantasy, objects, and science among others. Similar to many of the characters in these stories, Timothy Treadwell uses the bears as an escape. His work allows him to live apart from society and on his own terms similar to many of the Bokononists in Cat's Cradle. Treadwell uses his study of bears as an escape from facing reality. His misperception however, ultimately results in the death of Treadwell and his girlfriend. Had he been more conscious of the eminent danger he was so frequently warned about, he might have lived.

The man who knows everything about the man he never knew

It is difficult to determine exactly who Timothy Treadwell was through the lens we are presented with. Werner Herzog, in the NPR interview introduces Treadwell as a man with many demons, which included struggles with drugs and alcohol. As we know, Treadwell along with his girlfriend Amie were attacked and killed by a bear in 2003 and the way this interview is approached seems to frame the incident as if it was Tim’s fault, or that he had it coming.  Herzog claims that Treadwell made a mistake in loving the bears rather than respecting him, implying his obsession is what caused him blindness to the danger he was in. He also claims the solitude of his living caused him a sense of paranoia, saying he was in a sense “suicidal”. Herzog makes his views clear and since Treadwell is no longer alive to tell his side of the story, we as the audience only have the word of Herzog to base our opinions. The issue with the way Herzog presents this documentary is that there is very little room for interpretation from the audience since his bias is utterly clear. A documentary should be a factual recollection as best as it possibly can be told and even Herzog says in his interview that because Treadwell is dead, he must respect him and not distort his story. It seems ironic that Herzog says this based on the intensely biased picture he paints of the deceased Timothy Treadwell.

On: Bears

Timothy Treadwell is a peculiar type of person to say the least. I watched the "documentary" about his bear videos for the first time during my junior year in high school. Interesting experience. We watched it as a part of our transcendentalism unit, but I thought it was far from transcendentalist. 

Timothy claims he is "protecting" these bears from the cruelty of the real world, but these bears are in a national park. It is already protected from the cruel world… He comes off as a mentally unstable human being who thinks that living in the wild with bears is fun and somehow educational. I guess these ideas turned on him given the nature of his death.

Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to watch because of the humor elements, but that is pretty much it. I was never able to decide whether he was making it all up and acting crazy for the cameras, or he actually believed that he was helping these bears. Given the nature of this class, I’m gonna go with he was probably lying and acting for the cameras.

Our Relationship with Animals

     Timothy Treadwell's relationship with the grizzly bears of Alaska provoked some thought regarding human interaction with animals. A veterinarian, hunter, and cook likely view animals differently. While some argue for a sense of equality with animals, others claim superiority and feel no restraint in showing as much. To each, their argument appears true and justifiable. Animals, like the people and objects around them, alter their perception of the world.
     Treadwell feels as if it his duty to protect the grizzlies in Alaska. His dedication to this idea leads him to live with them, video taping his life and interactions with the bears (which include talking). The talking seems odd (by the standards of many I would think), but many people talk to their pets and this seems far more normal. It seems common that those who spend large amounts of time around animals develop an emotional connection with them. The emotions they feel toward these animals can manifest themselves in many ways. What can one take away, though, from Treadwell's view of the grizzlies or anyone else's view of any other animals?
     It is extremely easy to fall into the trap of viewing our relationship with animals in a black and white world. In the common cat vs. dog argument, for instance, both parties seem to view their pet of choice as clearly better. Strong opinions like these are perhaps only defenses against a change in what people in each party have believed to be true. If a dog has been important in someone's life for instance, it holds a far higher value than that of a cat in their life. Something like this only further confirms the idea that the values, and truths that we determine as a result, that we assign to animals or anything really are products of our environment and upbringing.

Timothy Treadwell: Dying for his Love

The whole point of this class is to open up our mind to realize manipulation and deception from the author as well as from the characters within the book. Therefore I don’t know to expect when listening and reading about Timothy Treadwell. 

Scott Simons, the host of the interview, in the first paragraph describes Werner Herzog as an obsessive man. He focuses on certain aspects that drive people to achievement or ruin. That is an interesting way to introduce a man in an interview.. “He was haunted by demons,” Herzog said about Timothy and discussed how his interaction with the bears drew out the better side in him. Timothy was saving the bears as much as the bears were saving him. That is an interesting statement to make considering Timothy died by being brutally mutilated by bears. However, an interesting fact that Herzog even brings up, is that normally bears do not attack humans. They stray away, unless lets say a mother is protecting her cubs and sees the human as a threat. Timothy had a death wish when it came to “loving” these bears. Timothy was just an enthusiast when it came to studying bears. He literally placed himself into the wild to study these wild creatures without the background experience required. As Herzog describes Timothy, he “wanted to be a star” and did so through these tapes. 

Herzog makes a very important statement about how he doesn’t view documentaries and feature films differently. This is important because if he doesn’t make a clear distinction then how will the audience know. He “invents and scripts” to stylize the documentary. He said in the beginning that he was not going to make “Grizzly Man” a feature film because all the events are too real but then says that “Grizzly Man” is his best feature film.

Learn from Timothy

The videos of Timothy Treadwell were fascinating.  Not only does Timothy seem to disassociate himself with the rest of humanity by thinking that it is his duty to protect bears from other people, but he thinks he has enough know-how to teach the bear how to survive.  For example, in one of the later videos, Timothy talks about how Downey is struggling to catch fish.  He proceeds to tell her, rather condescendingly, how to catch the fish.  He yells to her across the pond, “you have to actually work for it, you have to actually produce an effort.”  He anthropomorphizes Downey, even though he is essentially trying to protect her from mankind.  This is highly contradictory because he doesn’t want man to dominate over the bears, but yet he treats Downey as if he is superior and knows better than she does at surviving. 

Though it is quite prevalent with the case of Timothy Treadwell, people today often believe that they are inherently better than the other beings in the world and feel an inherent right to dominate over other creatures.  It also stems into feeling the right to dominate over other people.  This kind of mindset is not only troubling, but is part of the reason we have such an unequal society.  We can learn a lot from Timothy Treadwell.  We shouldn’t assume that we know better than the person or creature beside us because we don’t.  We need to be less condescending, more understanding, and realize that though we may be at the top of the food chain, we need each member of it to keep us alive. 

"They wouldn't hurt me."

In one of the videos on the Grizzly People website, Timothy says that his duties are to look after the bears and make sure they are not harmed by man. He also says that his presence guarantees their safety. I thought this was an interesting comment for a few reasons. First, one human does not have the capability to protect that many bears. His views were unrealistic, seeing as there are many possible threats to bears in the wild that one human would not be able to control. I don't think he understood the appropriate role and limits for a human interacting with bears. This was shown in a second video where he is talking to the bear like they speak the same language. Timothy says to the bear Downey, “You gotta get in there and really try harder. You gotta swat, you gotta move. They’re going underneath your paw. And when they go underneath, you don’t get them. You know?” Now like many pet owners, I am definitely guilty of talking to my dog like she’s a person from time to time. However, the length and tone of Timothy’s conversation made it seem like he really expected the bear to hear him, understand, and even respond.

            I also found it strange that Timothy was just casually standing across the creek from the bear. He looked very out of place and not particularly safe. I decided to find out a little more about his adventures, because he was definitely putting himself in some potentially dangerous situations. He was killed at the age of 46 by a bear, along with his girlfriend. In 1994, when asked if he was afraid of bears, he replied, “They wouldn’t hurt me”. This response leads me to question his mental sanity. I think it’s one thing for someone to put themselves out there and decide to live among bears, if they understand the risks and are willing to take those risks. However, he wasn’t in touch with reality enough to recognize the dangers of his actions. Overall, Timothy just didn't have a rational approach to his relationship with these bears. 

The Protector of Grizzlies Killed by a Grizzly

     Timothy Treadwell describes his experience with the bears in Katmai National Park and explains that "Bears are very misunderstood."  While he may be right in saying that bears have a bad reputation for attacking people, Timothy Treadwell was ironically mangled, partially eaten, and killed by a bear.  According to Wikipedia, grizzly bears normally avoid human contact, and they do need to be provoked to attack people, but they are still wild animals.  Mother bears will do whatever it takes to protect their cubs, and while this makes them seem like threatening animals, this response is natural.  Timothy Treadwell seems to have a distorted view of the grizzly bears and believes that he is their protector.
      Although I think his efforts to protect the bears were admirable, Treadwell failed to take into account the fact that bears are not human and they did not understand his mission.  They could easily have seen him as a threat.  He tries to recreate the truth about bears by showing people that they are harmless.  However, while he may be right that bears are portrayed as overly aggressive animals that will attack anyone, there is a reason for this portrayal, and the counterargument was only reinforced when he was killed by a grizzly bear. He also claims that his presence at the National Park was the reason that no bears were killed, but according to Wikipedia, two bears were killed in order to retrieve his body.  These bears would not have had to be killed if he had not been there in the first place.

Who Knows

There is such a fine line between some of the most successful and brilliant people in the world, past and present, and the mentally ill. Throughout human history, many of the most significant advances were made by people who were so obsessive, or seemingly unbalanced in one way or another, that they were not taken seriously until it was realized what they were capable of. Timothy Treadwell has experienced his own set of struggles, many of which we cannot assume to know anything about, yet he appears to be no more of a nutcase than any of the other pioneers of our time. Herzog describes his view of documentaries vs. feature films as fluid; each category spilling over into the other. In Timothy's case, this directly parallels the fine line between what is incredible or passionate and what is crazy.

Herzog's Truth

            While listening to the NPR interview with director Werner Herzog, I began to question how accurately Timothy Treadwell was portrayed in Grizzly Man. Herzog clearly had an emotional investment in this documentary. He also had a heavy hand in its production. After all, he directed, wrote, narrated, and starred in the documentary. Because of this, I don’t think we’ll get to see the “real” Timothy Treadwell in Tuesday’s class; we’ll see Timothy Treadwell through Werner Herzog’s eyes.

            Herzog says himself, “I’ve always looked for something much deeper, an ecstatic truth—the ecstasy of truth—some illumination in my feature films and in my documentaries.” While he denies exercising artistic license in this film, I don’t think Herzog can help it. He’s trying to let the audience see the Timothy Treadwell that he has gotten to know through Treadwell’s videos, diaries, and letters. For Herzog, there’s a difference between truth and fact. He desperately wants the audience to feel something, and connect with Treadwell on a personal and emotional level. It’s not all about factual accuracy.

            I connected Herzog’s intentions with the intentions of Tim O’Brien, the character in The Things They Carried. To quote O’Brien, Herzog wants to portray “the hard and exact truth as it seemed.” But the problem is this: just as many of the characters O’Brien writes about are now dead, Timothy Treadwell is also dead. Herzog can’t depict the truth as it seemed to Treadwell; he can only depict his own interpretation of it. He wants to tell us a story.

An Occurrence at Katmai National Park

Obsession leads people to do crazy things. Usually when there’s an obsession, a compulsion will follow. In the case of Timothy Treadwell, his obsession was clear: to save the grizzly bears. The compulsion that followed was Treadwell living in Katmai National Park in Alaska for 13 summers. This story resembles “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” because I believe that both Farquhar and Treadwell have an obsession, and act on it. Farquhar tries to sabotage the Yankees’ site at Owl Creek Bridge because he believes that he is doing the right thing.

            Both Farquhar and Treadwell seem unaware of the consequences of their actions, and continue to be “activists” in their own rights. Treadwell is fighting for the grizzly bears, and Farquhar is fighting for the Confederacy. In the mini videos I watched of Treadwell, he seemed to lose himself in the park. In the first episode, he calmly explained about the park and about Downey the bear. But, in another episode, his obsession seems to be mentally degrading him, as evidenced by him giving instructions to Downey of how to catch food from a river. Similarly, Farquhar at the beginning of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has his faculties about him. His fixation on hurting the Union compels him to go to Owl Creek Bridge. The reader can see Farquhar’s mental degradation during the hanging as he hallucinates about escaping from the Yankee troops with such clarity and accuracy. Ultimately, both Treadwell and Farquhar’s obsession lead to their demise, as a bear ravages Treadwell, and Farquhar hangs for his crime.