Page 89, 93-94 answers

1.)I imagine a man and a woman standing together alone getting ready to break up. The speaker tone is of relief.
2.)The speaker seemed to have wanted to be out of the relationship for some time but couldn't find the way to do it. "Cleanly and free" suggest that this is exactly what he wanted.
3.)He repeats often to let the reader know that theres obviously something wrong with the two of them.They have to break it off in order for the both of them to be fine.There shouldnt be any kind of love between them.
4.)I would feel as if I was never loved.I would just want to end the relationship anyways.
5.)The relationship has been on the rocks.It wasnt working at all.Presenting "love" as a dying person makes me believe that it was the end.The ned of something that they had and they now have to move on.
6.)This "you" is a person whose relationship is falling.It tells us that this person gives up whereas trying to make things work.
7.)He proably felt hurt by her.I think that he was trying to get over her, but never really could.Since she moved on, he tried to move on as well.


1.)The first two paragraphs lead me to believe that the hammock was a place that her and her dog frequently used as a relaxing place.I could see myself ina similar scene and if I was, I would feel relaxed.The fact that she felt more like the dogs protector tells me that her dog was scary.He wouldnt be able to protect her from the bear that she makes reference to.
2.)Yes paragraphs 3-6 alter the mood made by the first two paragraphs.The first two seemed like a calm setting while 3-6, seemed as if it was a noisy vacation.There were noises around her that she didnt find relaxing.
3.)"Her hands lift to cover her breast"-I was thinking that her hands were across her breast as a reaction to being shocked or scared.I also thought that she could have been laying on the hammock in like a bathing suit top and her seeing the bear look at her, could have been like her seeing another human look at her, so she tried to cover herself up.
4.)In those paragraphs, it tells how she loved her bear,but this bear was a stuffed animal.In the story, she tries to kill the bear.Her mom throwing away the bear may have made her begin to dislike bears.
5.)The bear couldnt have been that big if she decided to move her sofa onto the porch , so that she could sit there some evenings.
6.)In the seventh section, the readers sense of danger builds because it begins to talk about the killings that have happened due to bears.We are first told of cultures that honor bears, then told the bad things that bears do.
7.)The summer days are marked with an X because she doesnt like those days.Her memories of the visits to her aunts house in the summer werent great ones.Wolves would keep her up because their howling would stir up the neighborhood dogs and she was scared of the bears at the zoo.
8.)I wonder how many times she had to shoot the bear for it to finally die.It must have been a big beear after all if it tok s long to die.I found it interesting that in the morning she went and buried it.
9.)No I do not find the last sentence surprising.In one of the cultures(Lapland), after they hunt the bear, and have a funeral and feast, they put its bones back together in the ground.I felt that she was kind of doing the same thing.She got a gun for hunting, so I think that she was at the cabin in the woods, to hunt the bear.After she has done this, I think she decided to follow the Laplands culture and thats why she's returning next summer to dig up the claws.