Sean Brodie's Response to Zoanthropy

Zoanthropy by David Benioff was a strange and interesting story about a twenty year old boy living in New York, whose father is a heroic lion hunter, and he didn't like his legacy of killing lions. There were a lot of metaphors and symbolism in this story revolving around the boy, the lion, and the painting of Saint Francis. The boy whose name is Mackenzie Alastair Bonner was the narrator of the story, which told the story in the first person perspective. He was an animal lover and didn't want the animals to be harmed in anyway. He saw a painting of Saint Francis gazing upon the Heavens with bliss as if he was receiving the glory from God or enjoying the beauty of life in a museum. As Mackenzie walks into the bathroom to have a smoke, he meets a police officer named Louis Butchko who is a lover. They walk out the bathroom after a little chit chat to a garden courtyard with a fountain. Suddenly, an emaciated lion appears out of nowhere gazing upon the narrator and the police officer, drinks the water from the fountain, winks at him, and disappears. The people in the museum were terrified and the media and police were questioning witness about the incident, but they could not find the lion for it has disappeared. Mackenzie and Louis decided to go to the bar for a drink. They discussed about the lion winking at them as if it meant something and later discussed secretly that Louis was a lover. He talk about how women were different from men and the traits between the two sexes. Later, the boy watches over people in an apartment complex as if he was their guardian angel. He goes to sleep to dream that he was the lion he is looking for and with his pack watching cops pass by him at the museum, but goes underground to subway with rats infesting the area. There was a homeless man laying there and he walks towards him to comfort him and protect him. Louis later invites him to his one hundred and fifty dollar apartment which is a modified pigeon coop for living expensive for a person to stay in and tells him more about women. Mackenzie decides to take the bus back home but sees the lion outside the window and stops the bus. He gets off to see the lion but had fearful thoughts that the lion was going to kill him. He closes his eyes and gets down to the ground. The lion walks to him, breathes in his ear, and disappears. Afterward, he spies at the apartment complex again to watch what they people are doing. He looks into a woman's window to see a news report about the lion being found. The boy quickly rushes to the site where the lion is being seen. He runs into a crowd of people with cops surrounding the area, the media reporting the news, and his father with his rifle aiming at the lion. His father shot the lion and it roared terrifying the crowd. It uses its last bit of strength to climb a stairwell to charge at it's attackers, but slammed into a invisible wall. Mackenzie ran to the lion wanting to know what it wanted to tell him. It licked him and died. Later on the boy look out the window to watch Louis get intimate with the woman he watch over in the complex. The symbolism and metaphors of this is story is that the lion is like a guardian angel watching over him. Louis was talking about women as if Mackenzie as a animal lover should see how beautiful life is. Animals should be respected as much as women should be respected. Life is beautiful and love and peace is much better than the violence his father does for a living. He didn't like his father's legacy as if it was a symbolizes murder, violence, and blood shed. The boy wanted the lion to speak to him as if he imagine what it would say to him, but animals can't talk. Maybe the lion wanted to tell him that there are good people like him in the world, that I always had been watching over you, or maybe mankind has forgotten about love and peace, but Mackenzie is different and is a sign that human and animals can live together in harmony. When Mackenzie dreamed he was the lion he saw it symbolized how he was a guardian angel protecting and watching over people just like he was doing with telescope watching people in their apartments. It also shows him what it feels like to be the lion going through animal cruelty and being hunted by humans. It is like someone who isn't African American living in the horrible times of slavery, racism, etc living as a black person.